Arts

Walking Home: New exhibition at the University Gallery

The University Gallery welcomes a new exhibition this month. Walking Home by Lea Andrews is an overview of photographs all taken over the past twenty years.

Images from the exhibition

The photos, all taken by Lea himself, cover a variety of subjects, from humorous photographs of his art school days in Brighton, to the thought-provoking portraits of hospital patients, but one thing remains constant - his fascination with the village in Oxfordshire where he grew up. Perhaps his most well known images are those of the village with superimposed public monuments. Lea said: ' The village where I was born has little recorded history, as it has grown slowly from nothing over the past hundred years, upon what was once common land. I wanted to be able to invent a history for it by making photographic versions of 'false' public sculptures which inform its origins, its existence.'

The directness of Lea's images might be bold, but never insolent. They are checked by his sensitivity towards his subject matter and his constant re-positioning in light of experience. To this end, strong autobiographical themes pervade his work - in which family, childhood and loss of innocence are invoked and re-scrutinised, often with a disarming sense of the absurd. For example, the portrait of himself naked with his parents is seen by Andrews as an attempt to say something about his deep relationship with his parents and his love for them. He hadn't been naked with them since his childhood and wanted to re-visit that time of innocence and ease.

Walking Home: Photography by Lea Andrews is at the University Gallery from 20 February until 21 March. Admission is free and opening times are: Monday to Friday 11am to 5pm, and Saturday 1pm to 4.30pm.

Exciting theatre programme

Three diverse, professional productions will open this term at the Lakeside Theatre.

For one night only on Wednesday 19 February Nu Century Arts present Coming Up For Air, written by Birmingham's leading African Caribbean writer Don Kinch. Prompted by Kinch's contemplation of the high incidence of mental health problems in the black community, the play examines cultural and social bias on all sides. It follows the story of Denzil, who has murdered three people, and his psychologist who must assess his state of mental health.

On 21 February The Predictable Pig Theatre Company will present the one-man-show Manly Truelove's Theatrical Anecdotes. Written and performed by local journalist Darren Gooding, this surreal play sees the only character, Manly Truelove, contemplate the rise and fall of a once-great matinee idol.

The last professional production of the term will be Twentieth Century Girls, performed by one of the most committed and daring UK theatre company, The Kosh. Having premiered at the Edinburgh Festival and received the 'Pick of the Fringe' award, the play is a love story set against a sound design of instrumental jazz, sampled speech, advertising and poetry. The play has already received much critical acclaim and was described by the Guardian as 'full of charm, laid back and easy, disarmingly simple, dizzyingly vast.'