Exhibition

A Physical Exhibition at The Wall North Gallery - Hexham

"It is only for the sake of those without hope that hope is given to us." Walter Benjamin.

A group of Northeast-based artists come together on a meaningful drawing exhibition.

We are living through a time in which many feel that their ‘guiding star’ has been lost. Clouds of hopelessness have darkened many a horizon, banishing joy to the realms of memory. This exhibition is a welcome change of direction! It focuses on enacting hope, through the special rituals of drawing, and the ability of this practice to bring conscious attention utterly and uniquely to a moment or a place.

The artists represented here each find their own ways of embracing and accentuating this centeredness, with a fresh and hopeful originality that evokes Walter Benjamin’s notion of ‘aura’, meaning a special particularity of presence in time and space.

Recent research (by the University of Sheffield) has shown a three-fold increase in the number of people reporting clinically significant levels of anxiety and depression during the Covid-19 lockdowns, compared to previous baselines. Young people, women, the unemployed and those on low incomes have been affected the most. Social inequalities of other kinds have apparently been exacerbated too, further increasing stresses in systems and individuals.

Our new exhibition takes a modest but profound step towards nurturing the connections and re-connections we will need for a new phase of caring for each other, for empathy, healing, and building different kinds of resilient capabilities for the future. Rituals sometimes say it all - and drawing, seen in this context, can be an embodiment of the deepest hope.

Exhibiting artists include Enrique Azocar, Matilda Bevan, Chris Dorsett, Gill Germain, Peter Hanmer, Jenny Purrett, Claudia Sacher, Teresa Toms and Gilbert Ward.

The Wall North Contemporary, based in Hexham, sponsors the exhibition. This unique initiative was developed as a creative response to the difficult and unusual times presented by the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown. Organised by Enrique Azocar and with special collaboration of Dave Pritchard.

The exhibition comprises drawings from a diverse group of highly accomplished artists and will be showcased at The Wall North Contemporary in Hexham from July the 23rd to August the 1st. Each artist will exhibit maximum two artworks.