Arts

Cloth artworks explore what we’re thinking

South African artist Eliza Kentridge is exhibiting in the University Gallery this month with a series of drawings sewn on to cloth.

For What are you thinking all day? Kentridge has made drawings on tracing paper of isolated figures, based on photographs from newspapers, family albums and art books, which are then sewn on to cloth. By tearing away the excess tracing paper, she has created ghostly figures on plain cloth backgrounds.

She explained: ‘Through this process of removal, the sewn pictures transform into an alter ego, or primitive negative, of the original drawing, even though the essence of their experience remains.

Kentridge, who was born in Johannesburg but has lived in the UK for many years, studied English literature before working for an anti-apartheid educational organisation. She then studied drawing and printmaking at Oxford. Her work is often characterised by the use of bold colour. She has exhibited in Colchester and at the University before, as well as in London, Harrogate, Gateshead, Johannesburg and Cape Town. She has a solo show opening in Johannesburg in August.

The exhibition will be on show in the University Gallery until 27 June. Admission is free and the Gallery is open 11am-5pm Monday to Friday and 12noon-4pm on Saturdays.

Acclaimed writer concludes Woolf events

A series of well-received events celebrating the legacy of Virginia Woolf came to an end last month with a talk by acclaimed writer, broadcaster and academic Professor Hermione Lee.

The last day of events in the Afterlives of Virginia Woolf programme also included a performance by National Theatre actress, Kristin Hutchinson, and a discussion with playwright Darryl Pinckney. It concluded a month-long programme that included talks by distinguished scholars, workshops, performances and film screenings.

Sally Potter

An earlier event, at which filmmaker Sally Potter spoke, was received enthusiastically by its audience with attendees commenting: ‘she was so interesting, full of amazing ideas and yet so down to earth’ and ‘it was wonderful to hear someone talking such rare sense about the importance of art and the necessity of work.’

Professor Lee, whose 1996 biography of Virginia Woolf won the British Academy Rose Mary Crawshay prize and was chosen as Best Book of the Year by the New York Times Book Review, spoke on ‘Taking Possession and Letting Go: Virginia Woolf and Biography.’

The events were organised by Professor Marina Warner and Dr Sanja Bahun of the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies.