WORK ON WALLS EXHIBITION AT THE HERBERT MUSEUM AND GALLERY, COVENTRY
The Herbert Gallery & Museum, Coventry invited us to be part of their exhibition ‘Work on Walls’ along side a selection of graffiti and mural artists in Summer 2023. We were shown the collection including their archives and asked to choose artefact/s that inspire us and come up with a large scale design that would take up a large room with wall art.
Our starting point for this installation were two artefacts that we took from museums’ collection. We were drawn to a stained glass window from a 16th century hospital, destroyed in the Coventry Blitz, and a medieval mould of a small face, probably used to make a broach.
These spoke to us of being trapped, needing release. They have a sombre melancholia to them, an ethereal longing, but also a strength and dignity. Both of us have lost our mothers to neurodegenerative diseases and we realised that we were unconsciously tying our experiences into the design so we decided to embrace this aspect and incorporate elements of their story too.
In the artwork there are charms and souvenirs, there is symbolic imagery and there’s botanical drawings that link to rituals and transformation. Projections of imagery also interlock with the drawing, representing varying states of being, existing between the physical and disembodied. At the centre there is a sparrow, a symbol of the home, the domestic. A bird associated with good luck on a passage - they were used in tattoos by sailors for this reason. In Celtic tradition they are also associated with magic, messengers and femininity. The whole image is anchored by two hands with string tied between each opposing finger, looping and becoming knotted, like a chaotic cat's cradle or a puppeteer with no puppet. Shards fracture out of the boundary, threatening to cut the strings, and shapes dissipate and swirl around the subjects like lost neurotransmitters.
We hope that those who visited were able to reflect on their own stories, encouraged to look deeper into the collection available at the Herbert and to recognise and reflect on their own experiences through any artefacts or artworks that draw them in.
It’s been a joy to work on this exhibition, to meet all the artists with their different approaches and styles. The staff have been wonderful and enthusiastic, this is a gorgeous museum with such a variety of attractions and events that highly benefit the community and it is a great place to visit.
