The three artworks shown here will exhibited at Saatchi Gallery. These pieces are owned by the Ingram Collection of British art, and have been selected by curator Jo Baring to feature in their showcase at Saatchi Gallery during the British Art Fair.
On Friday 30th September at 3pm the curator will give a talk about the collection and has invited Nicola Anthony to talk about her works.
Please get in touch with the studio team on studio@Nicolaanthony.co.uk if you would like a complementary ticket for the talk.
More about the artworks
The Journey of Our Parallel Lives (2019)
Since moving to Ireland in 2018 I have been fascinated by the pull of Ireland’s countryside to artists, and the invisible stories that every landscape and journey contains. From walks all around the world I started keeping an abstract map. I noticed that every walk in the same place is different either in the experience, or in the particular path which seems to open up to my feet. At the same time, my courses run in parallel to each other, starting and ending together. These drawings represent movement, the invisible meanings of our journeys, and mapping the body’s course. I observe the feet never tracing the same route twice, and I understand that we all experience life differently even from the same path. My drawings are created by burning the surface of calligraphy paper: My medium is the charcoal brown as the paper changes state.
Inspired by a sculpture by Armitage, who was interested in bucking the patterns he observed in life - the horizontals and verticals which we must fit into - by making his walkers exist on a slant to “run across the rigid pattern”.
Learn more about this artwork here.
The Journey of Our Parallel Lives (2019), Nicola Anthony
SAVING OUR SOULS (2019)
The troubled history of the Irish incorporates a long history of war and famine. Boats are an icon of Irish travels across the seas which often ended in separation from families, loss of status and identity, or death. Pan forward to the current migrant crisis and we can draw many comparisons. To me the other side of the story is what happens under the water in the hidden currents of reaction: The opposing responses of either capturing and detaining these fleeing shoals of people, or helping them to safety. I work with NGOs to tell stories of immigrants in my work, but these Net Drawings were a more abstract way of describing the complications of such upheavals, revealing unexpected forms. They became allegorical for the journeys we all make at one time or another, in differing levels of safety, to find a promised New World. I draw by burning the surface of calligraphy paper. My medium is the charcoal brown and the scorch marks on the paper.
Created in response to John Behan's Ghost Boat, but contrasting it's substantial physicality, I have kept the ethereal simplicity of white paper, the burning being the only colour and line needed.
Learn more about this artwork here.
SAVING OUR SOULS (2019), Nicola Anthony
Maze Fragment (2019)
In the creation of this work Nicola Anthony was concerned with tangles, lines, the maze of words and the labyrinth of time. She studied the myth of Daedalus - “the greatest artist and the creator of the Labyrinth”. The journey of lines across the paper could be geographical contours, a distorted music stave with tumbling notes, or walking tracks in parallel. The lines lose their way along the route and become more haphazard. Anthony's drawings are created by burning the surface of calligraphy paper. This drawing rests on a mirror backing which is designed to reflect the light and shadow, and capture faces in the room as little moments becoming entangled in the puzzle. ‘Maze Fragment' is part of a large series in which the lines connect and span across 50 unique artworks, all existing now in parallel, and in different places - a fragmented map.
In Michael Ayrton’s book The Maze Maker, to which this artwork responds, Daedalus says “I never understood the pattern of my life, so that I have blundered through it in a maze.”
Learn more about this artwork here.
Maze Fragment (2019), Nicola Anthony