Connected By Light

 

Hawthorn - Neon Tree (detail)

 

 

There was no annual Winter Lights Festival at Canary Wharf this year due to the ongoing pandemic. Instead they present Connected by Light, a smaller specifically curated selection of light installations around the Canary Wharf estate. Although smaller in scale, the installations are just as colourful and vivid as previous years (here). On the evening that I visited some installations were turned off because of social-distancing concerns. The following pictures are of just some of the installations that I really enjoyed discovering on the trail. I visited the 2019 edition of Copenhagen's annual Light Festival which can be seen here.

 

Hawthorn - Newfoundland Reflections

 

Newfoundland is a new Canary Wharf icon and a striking addition to the skyline. This stunning building will soon open its doors to its first residents but before then, it has been transformed it into a beaming spectacle of light creating beautiful reflections on the water.

 

Hawthorn - Newfoundland Reflections

 

Ottotto - The Clew

 

Commissioned for the Canary Wharf Winter Lights festival 2020. The Clew is made from 100 circles of red light. This minimal and elegant construction creates stunning reflections of sunset on the water and frames the bridge, making you see this familiar landmark in a brand new way.

 

Ottotto - The Clew

 

Ottotto - The Clew (detail)

 

Paul and Pute - Time and Tide

 

Time and Tide highlights the pressing issues of plastic pollution in our oceans and waterways and the damage not only to the environment but to the wildlife and their habitats too. Time and Tide is constructed from biodegradable materials. The installation takes the form of an hourglass suggesting that our time on this planet is finite and a warning about our future here if we continue to pollute it.

 

Paul and Pute - Time and Tide

 

Mandylights - Tetra Park

 

Tetra Park is a geometric artwork that explores colour progressions through a complicated series of linear pathways. The series of stars sometimes appear to work together, while at other times the installation breaks down into seemingly chaotic colour. Their star forms remain true throughout though; shining as bold forms in the night for anyone who follows their path.

 

Mandylights - Tetra Park

Henry Moore -  Draped Seated Woman, 1950s

Mandylights - Colour Cubed

 

Colour Cubed is a simple exploration of the beauty that comes from a single light source. While we are constantly surrounded by vibrant displays of constant technology, the artwork uses a single traditional lamp along with long-used coloured glass techniques to cast a display of coloured light just as brilliant, dominant and inspiring as any other artwork or object in our lives.

 

Mandylights - Colour Cubed

 

LBO Lichtbank - Lightbenches

 

Hawthorn - Neon Tree

 

 Brightly coloured neon flex transforms the tree’s bare branches into a dazzling display of light. During the day see its subtle glow at night the vibrant colours shine.

 

Hawthorn - Neon Tree

 

Squidsoup - Murmuration

 

Several hundred networked orbs, each containing lights and speakers, visualise a swarm of networked data moving through real space. Murmuration is a piece originally inspired by the flight patterns of flocks of starlings, here transformed into digital form, but navigating and negotiating its way around the physical location of Canary Wharf’s Montgomery Square.

Squidsoup - Murmuration

 

Parker Heyl - Office Party

  

2020 and the start of 2021 have been defined by quarantine and social distancing, with many Londoners now working from home. “Office Party” comes from the playful idea that our work spaces may come to life in our absence. The blinds’ unexpected movement in an office after the workers have left, creates a moment of magic. It also touches on the future of architectural design and speculates about responsive and kinetic structures which can adapt to the needs of inhabitants.

 

Parker Heyl - Office Party

Connected by Light

until 27th February

Canary Wharf (various locations)

London

 

The Gee's Bend Quiltmakers

Rita Mae Pettway - 'Pig in the pen' - block style, (detail), 2019

 

 

 

"I came to realize that my mother, her mother, my aunts, and all the others from Gee’s Bend had sewn the foundation, and all I had to do now was thread my own needle and a piece of quilt."  - Loretta Pettway Bennett (b. 1960), Daughter of Qunnie Pettway (1943 - 2010), Granddaughter of Candis Mosely Pettway (1924 - 1997).

 

 

"Alison Jacques Gallery presents the first solo exhibition in Europe devoted to three generations of women artists living in Gee’s Bend, officially known as Boykin, a remote black community situated on a U-turn in the Alabama River with a number of the artists still living and working in Boykin to this day. The geographic isolation of Boykin has fostered a unique environment for both the women’s art community and their chosen method of quilting. 

The experimental processes and compositional language of the quilts have been passed down through generations of Gee’s Bend residents, from grandmothers to mothers to daughters. This idea of inherited knowledge is a key part of the artists’ work, something demonstrated here by the inclusion of works by members of the same family. A quilt from the 1930s by Annie E. Pettway (1904–1972) is presented alongside another by her granddaughter, Rita Mae Pettway (b. 1941); a quilt from 1970 by Candis Mosely Pettway (1924-1997) comes together with work from her daughter, Qunnie Pettway (1943-2010), and her granddaughter, Loretta Pettway Bennett (b. 1960). The familial lines that run through the show allude to the importance of communality and continuity to the Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers, with their techniques preserved and uniquely interpreted by each generation. In this sense, the quilts signify both a collective past and a hope for the future.

Uninhibited by the conventions of fine or folk art, the Gee’s Bend quilts constitute a crucial chapter in the history of American art. The vivid and multi-layered textiles preserve numerous vocabularies and approaches to form; the interplay between symbols and asymmetry refers to histories of African textiles while also evoking the formal qualities of Modernist painting. Forgoing more traditional art historical classifications, the quiltmakers organise their quilts into loose categories: ‘Abstraction & Improvisation’, ‘Pattern & Geometry’, ‘Housetop & Bricklayer’, ‘Lazy Gal’ and ‘Work Clothes’. 

"These women, closely bound by family and custom […] spent their precious spare time—while not rearing children, chopping wood, hauling water and ploughing fields—splicing scraps of old cloth to make robust objects of amazingly refined, eccentric abstract designs." - Michael Kimmelman. But the Gee’s Bend quilts were not sewn in the name of recreation alone—and neither were they originally conceived of as artworks. Instead, they were created out of necessity and a staunch belief that nothing should go to waste. When the nights grew cold, the women would stitch together scraps of fabric to insulate their children’s beds. Which is not to say that aesthetic consideration was not given. It was, and is, a common practice for the quiltmakers to publicly ‘air out’ their quilts every Spring, providing members of the local community with the opportunity to survey one another’s methods and take inspiration for their future designs.

The residents of Gee’s Bend are almost all descendants of slaves who worked on the original Pettway plantation - many bear the slaveowner’s name to this day. During the Civil Rights Movement, the community gained national recognition when they established the Freedom Quilting Bee collaborative and distributed their quilts across the country".

 

Finally, at long last, a chance to see the celebrated quilts of the Gee's Bend quilters in London. Having only experienced them online or in books previously, this exhibition (visited just before the announcement of lockdown 3.0), proved to be a real treat. These quilts are a delight. They are as vivid and creative as I hoped they would be. They are also a triumph of both colour and pattern, and my expectations were totally fulfilled. It was interesting to see the obvious links between the quilts and certain 20th C. fine art movements, and the works of artists who use textiles as part of their oeuvre. However, working in a closed community the older generation of Gee's Bend quilters at least would not have been aware of any developments in art/design outside of their own hamlet. I saw ancestral links in the Gee's Bend quilts with the Asafo flags of the Fante, Kuba cloth, and in the case of the denim quilt cross cultural connections with Japanese Boro textiles (here). Thread, stitch and textiles have informed much of my work especially the latest Aeolus and Struktur series, and I was able to see further possibilities with stitch and my own work here with these quilts. This is another absorbing exhibition of textiles like that currently on display at the Estorick Collection created by Italian artists and designers for MITA, seen recently (here). I'm so thankful that I took the opportunity to visit this  exhibition before its enforced closure. Hopefully it will be extended to compensate for the closure due to the pandemic.

Installation view

 

Stella Mae Pettway - Big Wheel, 1986

Delia Bennett - 'Diamonds' variation - 'One Patch', c.1975

Loretta Pettway - 'Log Cabin' - single block 'Courthouse Steps' c. 1980

America Irby - Center Medallion, c. 1940

 

Essie Bendolph Pettway - Two-sided quilt: Blocks and 'One Patch' - stacked squares and rectangles variation, 1973

Loretta Pettway Bennett - 'Z' and Chinese Coins, Pink, navy, Blue and Multi-colour, 2004

Candis Mosely Pettway - Coat of Many Colors, 1970

Qunnie Pettway - Housetop, c.1975

 

 

Ethel Young - 'Crosscut Saw', c.1970

 

 

Rita Mae Pettway - 'Pig in the pen' - block style, (detail), 2019

Annie E. Pettway - 'Housetop' nine-block variation, c. 1930

Loretta Pettway Bennett - Work-clothes strips, 2003

 

Loretta Pettway - Two-sided work-clothes quilt: Bars and blocks, c. 1960

The Gee's Bend Quiltmakers

until 6th February

Alison Jacques Gallery

16-18 Berners Street

London

W1 

 

(Please note that viewing hours for this exhibition have ended temporarily in light of the ongoing Tier 4 level lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic).