NEW AT KETTLES YARD - ANOTHER CHANCE ENCOUNTER
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‘Another Chance Encounter’ is a shared show between Lubaina Himid, the pioneer painter already famous for her approach to race and culture and Magda Stawarska , skilled in the blended art of sound and painting, ‘inner listening’ is the objective. Together as a years- long partnership they have produced for Kettles Yard an intriguing combined set of works connected in often obscure ways, to Kettles Yard house itself.
Flying Carpet is a homage to the imagined life of Helen and Jim and the objects they would have used in their daily lives
Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska,match the title of their show with Another Chance Encounter of their own. And they could hardly be more different. Lubaina is a personality bursting with restless energy, a stand-out character in any room. Magda is the serene blonde pale European Ice Maiden to Lubaina’s warm Northerner /African. The work complements both tropes.
Lubaina explains the unlikeliness of their own partnership, a meeting at first mightily remote,“ I often think ‘How did we get where we are.? Magda is Polish and I was born in Zimababwe and brought up in Blackpool. Then we both found our way to Preston where we now live.”
Their art is as divergent as they are.
Try out a few of them
Be alert. The show spans spaces - there is the usual Gallery where some rooms explore abstract and sound, whilst others celebrate the power of figurative painting. One possible complication here is the split location of the exhibits as between the Gallery (free) and the House (not). so much of the spirit of this exhibition comes from the history of the Edes’ home, their art their choices. With a special emphasis on its history. Possibly problematic then is the on-going issue of charges to see the House . The brusque introduction of a financial transaction at Kettles Yard becomes an issue again. At the time of the switch to payment many commentators - and devotees of the Ede House, reflected bitterly on the irony of Jim Ede’s open approach - with the abrupt imposition of substantial entrance fees. “He’d be turning in his grave at the thought of it” was a the commonly held view. We shall see how the new rules concur with the idea of a show so bound up with the House and its history.
Slightly-Bitter-Magda Statwarska
