Relations and Reflections
25 March – 17 April 2021
Rosalynd Byass, I Will Never Be Without You, 2021, oil on canvas, 30cm diameter each
Jonny Lane, Mould, 2021, photographs, dimensions variable
Chloe Bushell, Rosalynd Byass, Wade Forster, Demi Harper, Ailisha Jade Laidlow, Jonny Lane, Claire Liddle, Halona Mason, Kevin McAllister, Caitlin McFarlane, Stuart McMenzie, Jessica O’Donnell, Chelsea Williamson
In January this year Newcastle College second year Fine Art degree students were given the opportunity of working with Vane on an online exhibition of their work. At a time when our loved ones have become all the more precious, the students were asked to respond to the idea of ‘family’ which has resulted in the exhibition ‘Relations and Reflections’.
Family is very much at the forefront of a lot of people’s lives at the moment. What does ‘family’ mean? The term doesn’t necessarily refer to the biological: mother, father, siblings, etc. Friends or even pets can be more of a family to some people than their own relatives. It can be a support network, a source of comfort and a safe haven, but it can also be focus for friction and resentments – sometimes deep and long-lasting.
These works, made at home during the most recent national lockdown, highlight the students’ profound talent and inspirational resilience. This is a heartfelt and thought-provoking exhibition which represents the essence of family in the broadest of terms. At this time a celebration of this most human of phenomena feels especially poignant.
A special thanks must go to featured artist and exhibition coordinator Wade Forster for her dedicated leadership. For more information about the Newcastle College course go to ncl-coll.ac.uk and Instagram @fineart_ncuc
Andrew George Holder, Course Leader, BA (Hons) Fine Art, Newcastle College University Centre
Chloe Bushell, from the ‘Ecological Ties’ series, 2021, card, paper, cotton, 3x15x15cm
Wade Forster, from the ‘Over Grown’ series, 2021, acrylic and pen on card, 14.8x10.5cm each
Demi Harper, Modern Madonna And Child, 2021, oil on canvas panel, 59.4x84cm
Ecological Ties is a collection of butterflies and moths that Chloe Bushell has identified and assigned to individual people in her life. Bushell wants to draw attention to the impact that ‘family’ has in her life and compare it to the ecological importance of insects as a whole. Butterflies and moths are the insects she has chosen because of the idea that every single one is completely unique, just like the people in her life. The insects are split into two ‘families’: Cognatio (related by blood) and Amicus (friend), each presented as if in a museum display box. The Cognatio family share a common ancestor while the Amicus family represents the network of people around her.
With the two paintings, I Will Never Be Without You, Rosalynd Byass aims to encapsulate the feelings associated with the bond she has with her identical twin brother, the closest bond she will ever have. By representing it in a surreal landscape, Byass tries to capture the feeling that their love transcends the linear narrative of their everyday lives. When her brother came out as transgender, Byass realised that the way she perceives him is not affected by his gender identity. It is an unconditional love that will not waver. Whilst they are different people with different goals and identities, they are still identical twins who share many traits, and so their lives will be always be strongly interconnected. No matter what happens, they will be there for each other.
Lost garden ornaments, forgotten by everyone but time, were rediscovered and pulled from the undergrowth by Wade Forster. With them came many memories of relatives whose relationships with Forster had also become lost in some way. Normal ‘growing up’ things, but something that could still be found again. Each garden ornament painted as a postcard for the work, Over Grown, relates to the person she intended to send it to. Forster wrote specific questions on the back that she hoped would intrigue them to write back to her. Out of the seven sent, she received one reply. A found frog ornament, a found postcard, a found relationship.
Demi Harper recently took her fascination with the Renaissance on a new voyage with her painting, Modern Madonna And Child. Family is the focus of this direction: the term immediately bringing to mind her sister and new baby nephew. One of the most important religious themes in western art, the image of Mary and the baby Jesus, has been depicted in a multitude of ways by the greatest painters of their time. By representing her sister and nephew as the quintessential Renaissance Madonna and Child, Harper seeks to convey her love for them and the continuity of a great artistic tradition.
Chelsea Williamson, Min Familikreds, 2021, acrylic and oil on canvas, 60x73cm
Halona Mason, Sex and Pleasure from the ‘Household taboos’ series, 2021, digital collage, 84x100cm
Ailisha Laidlow’s five-minute film, Grow through, what you go through, is inspired by women’s rights and explores a very sensitive and serious interpretation of ‘family’. Whilst attitudes to many aspects of human relationships have changed massively over recent decades and have become normalised, the issue of abortion is still often hidden and discussion avoided, though often of huge significance to individuals directly affected. With this project, Laidlow seeks to break the stigma around the issue, and the stereotypical idea that it is ‘normal’ to ‘grow up and have a family’, an attitude that is changing with the current generation. Creating a family often isn’t easy or natural and abortion has benefited many people’s lives. She believes that every person should be allowed to receive this procedure (free of charge) and that this sensitive matter should be a choice for the individual alone. Wanting a family or not, people have the right to decide what they do with their own bodies; this should not be simply a political discussion.
In the series of photographs, Mould, Jonny Lane explores the intense relationship that he has with his mother. He wants to depict the strength that he has gained being raised by a single parent and how she has helped make him into the man he is today: a true portrayal of the strong bond they’ve grown over time. Lane decided to use photography as his medium as he believes it shows a raw insight into their bond, depicted through the particular angles and his decision to keep the photographs black and white, an insight he doesn’t think he would be able to achieve in any other medium.
Claire Liddle’s work, The Whole Damn System Is Wrong!, is inspired by the everyday and takes a critical view of social, political and cultural topics, blending and mixing influences from popular culture and traditional craft to depict the ordinary and the domestic in a recognisable way. In a collaboration between memory, nostalgia and media, Liddle incorporates images taken from television into an assemblage of materials and objects, highlighting critical awareness of media constructed clichés, interweaving and exploring cultural references of traditional craft with gender politics, consumerism, family and daily life. Liddle attempts to make visible the pressing discrepancies between men and women when it comes to parental status and roles.
Halona Mason has created a series of five digital collages, Household taboos, the main themes of which are sex and sexuality, drug use, politics and kink culture, all topics that relate to the generalised idea of what you wouldn’t want to discuss with your family. The works provoke conversation alluding to mental health, pornography, fetishism. The work is created in humour, but with an understanding of the depth certain topics hold. It is entirely open to individual interpretations of which artwork embodies which theme, and what they represent.
Kevin McAllister, Bric-a-brac of the Menage, 2021, oil on canvas, 81x101cm
Stuart McMenzie, Queen Pasiphae, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 40.6x50.8cm
Kevin McAllister’s painting, Bric-a-brac of the Menage, encapsulates decades of memories, displaying items that have no intrinsic value, yet no amount of money could purchase them. This blind devotion to accumulate items that trigger memories resonates with humanity’s fear of mortality. Using the traditions of Vanitas painting, the work shows juxtaposed images that complement the colour scheme. The painting displays thirty-years of five people’s lives in one image, from joy, death and family arguments hidden in plain sight. As the painting ages those decades are frozen forever offering a time capsule for all to view. Without our bric-a-brac we are an empty photo album.
Caitlin McFarlane doesn’t start her work with a form or pattern in mind. She chooses to make a number of experimental pieces using different combinations of media. The name, Vermillion Daze, comes from the orange-red hues in both paintings. The paintings are based on McFarlane’s personal relationships with her aunt and mother. She wants to show how a family can include anyone; they don’t necessarily have to be a blood relation. The paintings are intended to express her emotions towards both people. In the first painting the hand expresses the feeling of despair and solitude when she is in her mother’s presence. The black hole signifies a draining of serotonin (the key hormone that stabilizes mood) and energy. Whereas the painting of the beach represents the complete opposite, being McFarlane’s happy place.
Stuart McMenzie’s painting, Queen Pasiphae, is based on the ancient Minoan myth and the tragedy that befell King Minos, Queen Pasiphae and their son Glaucus. The King and Queen had approached the high seer in Delphi for guidance and resolve in finding their son. Leading them to the magician Polyidus, who unbeknownst to them had been studying the cattle in King Minos’ herd, Polyidus later discovers that Glaucus has fallen into an urn of honey after chasing a mouse. Out of rage and desperation, Queen Pasiphae tasks Polyidus with resurrecting the son, after burying both within his crypt. This piece focuses on the despair of Queen Pasiphae upon hearing the news, as well as what actions led up to the tragedy and what was to follow.
Jessica O’Donnell, Pussy Hysteria from the ‘Pu$$$y $eries’, 2021, digital images, 133x100cm
Claire Liddle, The Whole Damn System Is Wrong!, 2021, acrylic wool, found objects, 90cm diameter
Caitlin McFarlane, Vermillion Daze 1, 2021, acrylic paint, oil pastels and markers on canvas, 60x42cm
In the digital images that form the Pu$$$y $eries, Jessica O’Donnell explores the changing attitude of reproductive sex in the Victorian era. In the 1800s, it was only considered acceptable to have sex as long as it was with the intention of producing a child. Today the viewpoint has changed drastically into a more positive and safer topic of education and expression. These images show what it would be like for women in the nineteenth century if the role of reproductive sex had been presented in a positive light: more erotic and a lot more accepting. The three digital images together aim to show the change in attitudes and how women enjoy a new freedom in self-expression without the societal backlash that they once received.
“It’s not gender that makes a family; it’s love. You don’t need a mother and a father; you don’t necessarily even need two parents. You just need someone who’s got your back.” Jodi Picoult, American author. As a multi-lingual artist, Chelsea Williamson couldn’t think of a more appropriate title to the family-centred exhibition theme than Min Familiekreds (My Family Circle). With this title, she is referencing and exploring her Danish roots from her mother’s side. Instead of following the traditional nuclear family dynamic, Williamson’s work investigates the structural and emotional co-habitable dynamic between herself and her pets. ‘Pet’ is perhaps the wrong word for an animal that has witnessed all aspects of our day-to-day life, they are not just pets but members of the family. Williamson’s pets have become her own personal circle, as she lives alone. She struggles with mental health issues and her pets are dependent on her for their care. They, in turn, give her a reason to keep going and to smile each day. Her project explores the powerful effect of companionship and support that animals give to us. Painting her pets has been a way for her to explore not only her own, but also other people’s positive experience with their animals; giving her the same sense of peacefulness and comfort as her hamsters, fish, dog and gecko do themselves.
Ailisha Jade Laidlow, Grow through, what you go through, 2021, film, 4:47min
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