[Energetic music]
In the recent months
of lockdown one of the things we worked
on
was ensuring that when the time is right
and safe
we can open Salisbury Arts Centre with an
exciting exhibition. 
Allow me to welcome you
to Wiltshire Creative Summer Open 2020.
My name is Mirka Golden-Hann and I am
resident artist and head of visual arts.
After many months of lockdown and some
truly difficult
times i'm thrilled to be able to present
to you this Wiltshire Creative Summer
Open Exhibition.
It is held at Salisbury Arts Centre,
Bedwin Street, Salisbury.
It is an exhibition
which platforms the work of artists based in
Wiltshire and adjoining counties.
The exhibition consists of more than 80
pieces
selected from over 280 submitted works.
You can see here painting,
drawing,
textiles,
photography,
glass,
ceramics,
wood,
mixed media and much more
This online viewing of the exhibition
was
created in place of
a private view event. Ordinarily
our exhibition openings would be buzzing
with
people engaging in excited
chat and debate but for now the reality
is different
and so we react by arousing the
excitement
associated with our exhibition
in other ways and i would like to thank
you all
for watching and supporting this work.
I would also like to say thank you to
the participating artists
and thank you to the amazing Wiltshire
Creative team.
Open exhibitions are the result of time
taken
by a panel of selectors
who carefully consider and decide
which artwork will end up in the final
lineup
and which doesn't.
I am really pleased to say that i've
been joined
with the three panelists who worked
really hard
on selecting our Summer Open Exhibition
2020
and panelists are Pauline Scott-Garrett,
Pauline is a Wiltshire Creative board
member, pauline is also an artist and
a visual arts champion.
Our next panelist is Katie Ackrill,
Katie is an art historian
she is also a curator and she is head of
visual arts
at Pound Arts Corsham.
We are also joined by Martin Memory
and Martin is Salisbury Gallery owner,
Martin is also an artist and an
optometrist
and Martin tells us that he's got
everything to do with light.
Martin is also a sponsor of this year's
public vote prize.
This year's public vote prize is
called The
Memory Fine Art prize. So,
let me ask you all one by one a question.
Which piece of art
had particularly stayed with you
since the time of the selection and I
will ask Pauline first.
Thank you Mirka, the piece that
stayed with me
was by an artist called Prudence Maltby. She is a Salisbury based artist and
the title of the piece is
a Collage, Collage 1 and it's
a dry point copper etching with
collage on top of it and it's not
particularly large it's about
40 by 50 centimeters so but about
about this size.
It's very, very beautifully
presented it's sort of
tiny very delicate and sort of
illusory somehow and with that mystery
really
sort of drew me in and I could see
curious sort of references to things
little glimpses of things and
I definitely wanted to know more. So,
I started to look deeper into the
work and I could see some
references to possibly other cultures,
maybe history struggles even war. There
was a little symbol of war
in there and I, as I started to look
at those references and they started to
make
emotional connections with me and I felt
my interest rising, I felt my heart beat
rising actually and my heart starting to
beat faster
and it's always a sign of a powerful
piece for me.
So I started, I returned to the piece
and thought about it again and
it's - talk about its actual
materiality how it was made. It was
created by a dry point etching using
a copper plate
which is essentially a print using an
etching press and then
collaged on top so layers built up to
create this illusion of depth
and insight. The etching as
a background gave it a sort of
grounding as a setting if you like
and I started to look deeper into the
little symbols and references
in the piece of work and they
started to provoke a sense of
kind of a fear almost, alarm!
I, there was like an all-seeing
eye which seemed very profound and, and
an all-hearing ear so
very eclectic, but yes a sense of
alarm
what this piece is all about, but I
sort of soothed and comforted myself by
noticing the kind of beautiful little
components, little
delicate details of patterns the sort of
decorative nature.
It's this great sense of design and
solidity
and there's a lovely diagonal floor with
beautiful black and white squares
and as I looked deeper and deeper into
the piece I started to
sense a kind of autobiographical note,
somebody peeking through a window and
then I saw the girl.
Who is that girl? it had
a nursery rhyme quality almost and uh
then i noticed a mask and that was
probably the,
the thing that helped unpack the whole
piece for me because i realised it's a
sort of
The piece is about masquerade it's about
a facade a veneer and it's about
concealing and revealing
and it's funny too i've made it sound
quite deep but
actually it's very funny there's little
kind of moments of humour
and it's very, very personal a real sort
of personal revelation if you like
very subtle nuanced yet hugely powerful
so without a doubt I felt you know, I
felt
profoundly connected with this piece and
felt that it was a,
it was something that i really did
want people to see
to read and to feel.
Thank you very much Pauline
it is, I remember that we, during the
selection process we did
talk about the fact that
this, those two pieces selected they
really - between
kind of dream and a night terror
almost and they, yeah they kind of are
interwoven,
interweaving those two and you never
know quite
in which state you are, yeah it is very
intriguing
[Pauline] Very beguiling 
[Mirka] Yes! yeah
Thank you Pauline.
Katie
What, which piece struck in your memory?
Thank you so much Mirka and thank you
Pauline that was so fascinating to hear.
The piece
i've
chosen well the two pieces that i've
chosen are by Kees van der Zwan
and i've chosen them both because we
selected them both
and they just they're really lovely kind
of pairing together.
They're called WE ARE EACH OTHER and
come together
and they're two gorgeous small
paintings.
I chose to talk about these two pieces
because
I just had quite a kind of strong,
immediate reaction or response to
these I kind of
loved the messages that the artist
is kind of putting out there through
these pieces we are each other
and come together and I think that
they're lovely
messages to put out at the best of times
but I think
but particularly right now I just
thought well what great messages to put out there.
I think you know we're all living in
these
very difficult and anxious times
and
we're trying very hard to support one
another, but at the same time feeling
quite isolated and confused so I think
it's great to be putting those
very simple but
very powerful messages out there.
So for me that was just great to see it
made me feel quite happy it made me
smile
and I think also, the kind of art
historian in me
really responded to these pieces as um
Mirka mentioned at the beginning. I'm,
my background's in art history and I
teach
art history leisure
courses and it's really my great passion,
it's what i'm always coming back to
and always, always talking about and
thinking about so
I think what I kind of loved about these
pieces is they seem to be
informed by this kind of byzantine
visual language and I love that
and I love these kind of saint-like
figures
with their kind of flat halos and
their tablets with the
messages that they're kind of gesturing
to, pointing to
and I love the the way it's kind of
informed by
the simplicity and directness of
byzantine art.
I think it's quite powerful in its
directness and I think
that really helps to put those
messages across.
I think that was an interesting
language,
visual language to use for the kind
of messages
that Kees is putting across
and I also felt that another thing that
I loved it wasn't quite trying to, it's
not trying to quite
copy byzantine art but he's kind of got
his own thing going on it's quite
playful they're quite
quirky they, they're kind of
responding to it
but they're not copying it they,
they've got that kind of dignified
simple thing going on but there's
also they've just they're in a different
direction and I think that
playfulness kind of really
can can appeal to an audience of
today
so there's that really interesting
push and pull that
that I really like about them and
the more i look at them the more i go
back to them i just think
wow what beautiful jewel-like lovely
happy pieces and I think also it's
something that we were I can't remember
we talked about this
when we were selecting or whether
I know Mirka and I talked about it
a little bit afterwards were his kind
of belief
that everyone should own art andI  kind
of
I loved that and that he reflects that
in his pricing for his artwork and and I
think
that's a nice even though that's kind of
not why I chose to talk about them today
I love
that kind of um as I say it's the
style
and it's the messages that they're
kind of giving across but I just wanted
to end by
mentioning that kind of lovely ethos
that he creates by and and works by
and that it's all about kind of
getting art to people and getting art
into their homes and i
I just I think that's that's just a
lovely thing
um so yeah, yes
that's why that's why i've chosen those
two pieces to talk about.
Thank you Katie, Yes there is some
sort of comfort within them
and and friendliness and I think that's
why we were all attracted
to the work and I did do a
bit of digging
since about about Kees and
I found out I hope he will not mind me
saying this
that he was actually expelled from
art school when he was a young man
and then he went on to live his life and
returned to back to art fairly recently
and never looked back since and
you know I really find that story also
very encouraging.
[Katie] Yes sort of a rebel artist
Oh, thank you and I will ask
Martin Memory next, which piece of art
or which artist had stayed with
you since the selection?
Thank you Mirka
I would say I think I agree with Katie
that it's great that art is there for
everyone to be part of
and I think that it should be a very
inclusive
group for everyone to be involved
with.
The artist that struck me
particularly
was Sophia Sample and her submissions. Her work for me
it strikes me as being very precise very
well constructed
and very, very, very well thought
through.
There's clearly a narrative
within Sophia's work
and I guess that that's probably not
surprising given that her
her painting process and her philosophy on her work
is
based around our experience of events
significant events historical and also
contemporary.
I also find her work very engaging it's
it's quite easy
to from a visual perspective to engage
with,
it's in that sense it's easy on the eye
it's very,
seductive in that sense so
it draws you in and allows you to get
involved with the work
and to start to ask questions of it but
I also think the work asks questions of you you as well as a viewer
I think the answers to the questions we
might ask are not always easy to find
and also I think the answers probably
when we get them aren't that easy
to accept either.
I think looking at these two submissions
I think we can say they're fairly
ambiguous
they are after all paintings of walls
with signs on
and there's not a lot of visual clues
there about
what the narrative is about
the work.
I think there's an intellectual clue
from the titles
here we've got BLOCK 2 and BLOCK 11 so
we're probably not looking at a domestic
interior here these are more likely to
be
interiors of an institution maybe and
even
perhaps of incarceration, so intriguing
pieces of work
and there is that narrative and it's not
I think both the title and the work are
ambiguous so it's not always
an easy journey to find out what Sophia
is trying to tell us here
so I did take the liberty of speaking to
Sophia about her work
and it transpires that what we're
looking at here is is a small part
of a larger body of work that she
undertook having visited Auschwitz. 
Now of course i think Sophia's
deliberately left
out that word Auschwitz from the title
because of course that would propel
us very quickly into understanding what
the narrative is about the work
and I don't think Sophia intends us to
understand the work that easily I think
she wants us to struggle a bit to find
out
you know what that work really means
and that's possibly I think a reflection
of
how difficult it might be for us to
really come to terms with
those events that happened at that place
at that time, so for me these are two
very powerful
pieces of work with a very powerful
message.
I think so from a visual point of
view and and also
from an intellectual point of view they
tick those two boxes for me in a very
powerful way
and so from that perspective I think
that they're very deserving
of being present in this year's open
exhibition.
So i think that's really what
struck me about those
pieces of work and yeah I think
they're fantastic.
Thank you Martin yes i'm very pleased
that you picked Sophia Sample to
talk about because I have been
following Sophia for a few years now and
with a great interest in her practice
and
I don't know if you remember we last
time Sophia had
exhibited with us was in the Insatiable
Minds
exhibition which was the festival 2019
exhibition and it was the
kind of the, the interest in politics
and interest in human history
and references to creativity
and the terror that humans can impose
on one another that kind of mirror's
in Sophia's work so
so so very well with such kind of depth
of analysis
and yes you are right yeah it's, 
we are very, you know, i'm very pleased to
to have this work in our exhibition
so thank you.
In selecting the exhibition
the aim was the widest representation of
genre and art forms
we were mindful of presenting work made
by
artists at any stage of their career.
When standing in front of a piece of
artwork you are presented with at least
two parallel narratives.
The artwork tells the story which the
artist
wants the observer to witness and it
also offers an insight
into the artist's world and into their
own experiences.
Open exhibitions tend to be eclectic
collections of precisely this,
a kaleidoscope of creativity
which continuously nourishes
contemporary culture.
Our Summer Open exhibition
includes work which narrates
artwork which represents
which looks back at the fun good old days
or which issues is a warning
you will see artworks which educate
which will make us inquire
which is personal
and which is universal
artwork which will invite contemplation
or teleport us into a different place
as well as artwork which might rattle a
few pages
understandably there are several pieces
included in this year's exhibitions
which directly feed
off the experiences of lockdown
exhibitions galleries and art shows
closed their doors
but art did continue to be made
we know that creativity for some was
the main coping mechanism to navigate
through this very difficult time.
Making, painting, creating
gave many a tangible reminder
that time did not stop and that
this time when we were not allowed to
meet
friends and hold loved ones was not
wasted
but it was used to achieve to learn
and to discover, to get to terms
with the unthinkable.
As we learn to live and interact
differently
creative endeavor continues to offer an
escape
and this escape also extends to
experiencing the art
created by others.
As you know due to the lockdown
it was not possible for us to deliver
our Summer Open exhibition within
the summer dates
however the decision to keep
the name in spite of the season was
taken quite early on
when we started to consider how we
re-emerge from the situation.
Keeping the name Summer Open felt
significant.
In the time when life as we knew stopped
hanging on to the promise which every
summer brings
felt really very important and so
we chose not to change the name.
We made this feature to replace our
private view event,
during a private view you would of
course have had a chance to meet some of
the artists and speak to them
and we felt that this particularly is
important
and we wanted to make this still
possible therefore we got in touch
with some of the exhibiting artists so
that they can say a few words
about their work.
During the selection
process
it came apparent from very early on that
theme of birds was regularly reoccurring
amongst the submissions
walking through the exhibition you will
notice
that we have selected several artworks
depicting birds.
I think that this is because
paradoxically the symbolism of a bird
encompasses both freedom and sinister
premonition.
The first artist I am speaking to is
Lynn Heaton. Lynne why is it
that the theme of birds so often
features
in your work?
My artwork holds
I mean and explores the elements
that's earth, air,
water and fire and these elements
combine
to form or create the spirit of life and
death
living and dying. My crows
these are the, I love that's why I really
like crows they embody these elements
and my crow is like the spirit it's
made up of all those elements.
My crow the crow is empty
and full at the same time
and the, you know, people say it's an omen
of change
it's a keeper of sacred law, natural law
and I like that I really like that. It's
the gatekeeper
so micro symbolises the potential for
change.
It simultaneously is solid and
void or empty, it's a space
my crow is the space in between endings
and beginnings it's that bit
in just in between those two life and
death it's in the middle of the two
it's like the gateway between the two
and the place it's the place from which
all things are coming
and the place from which all things are
heading.
And in the same way the blackness of the
crow
absorbs all the colors all the colors of
the rainbow
and it also reflects all the colors so
it does both
and it's a natural,
earthy magic for me is the crow.
Thank you Lynne it's wonderful because I
know your work for so many years
and finally to hear you speak
about it this way it's you know, it's
opening eyed to me as well to see new
things
in the work that you do so thank you
very much.
 
Thank you
My next artist to interview is Clifton
Powell.
I have been aware of Clifton Powell's
work
for some years I distinctly remember
seeing his work for the first time
it was so exciting the work emitted
the energy of street art but at the same
time it presented the insight into 
an investigative lecture.
Included in this exhibition is Clifton's
painting
THE GOLDEN TRIBE and it was the
contemplation and the wisdom
of the young person in the painting
which was noted and discussed
to some detail during the selection
process.
Clifton please can you tell us more
about this painting
and where this piece fits within your
artistic practice.
Well i've been doing
black art for a long while because
in Jamaica it's mostly black people
and that's all that's what I
used to doing a lot of black people but
my roots
is strictly from Africa so we have
similar
type of living and
similar way
of expressing ourselves and enjoying
ourselves
and play and the world thing is similar
so
you know that's what I know.
When I came to England I started doing a
different pieces
but you know my true
foundational background was really
African art
in Jamaica they used to have a thing
called jonkonnu where
people dress up in um and I suppose it
comes from Africa as well
that's where it comes from people dress
up in loads of different
costume and painted face and
you know masks and stuff and go around
meeting drum and
and it was you know jonkonnu was designed
really to scare kids when kids was
misbehaving.
Every year these people come around and
scared the kids "like go on touch
the feather, ah
no! I don't wanna touch you!" feeling
something like that
so yeah, it's a natural thing
what I do THE GOLDEN TRIBE
I think, its experiment
why I turned a normal paint
a fierce a normal face painting in a
gold painting
so it was an experimental stage
why I bring it there. The expression
is an expression coming from my soul
really
and that is the expression of
innocence but the innocence
is, was there and when I start doing art
art give you this spiritual awareness
that you can, you can
you know expand on your innocence you
know
and look into things I want to create,
I want to design, I want to work certain
things out
so you know that that piece was
was me really you know
I think we can,
yeah, it is it it comes through as such
it is a really powerful and insightful
piece and
i'm really pleased that we have it in
the exhibition
and i'm also pleased to say that Clifton
will be exhibiting with us with a much
larger selection of works
in the following exhibition from our
Summer Open
which is the exhibition Diaspora
which unfortunately was cancelled due to
lockdown
but we are producing this exhibition
straight after our Summer Open
so we will see more of Clifton then.
Clifton thank you so much
it's been wonderful and see you soon
Thank you very much nice speaking to you
okay
and i'll see you soon as you say.
To many of us not being able to go out
and meet friends in the lockdown was a
real loss
to eat and drink together and to chat
and debate
is what we as humans do irrespective
of the culture of our origin.
In the exhibition the painting by
ZI Ling
takes us into a turkish coffee house
ZI Ling,  Hi, hello
please can you tell us more about your
piece and
and about your practice.
Yes actually I was always hungry looking for
a secret
moment centered around the love and
beauty
and my painting, for this painting my
journey
I think is starting from a cup of
Turkish coffee which I bought a couple
of months ago
from Istanbul and I think the
the aroma of this ancient orange of the
coffee
froze my mind totally because I can
traveling
around culture people religion
and time without border.
I think i'm quite interesting in the
people and the things
in a space in a way which we don't
normally encounter it however this isn't
not something about
gravity this is something about
imagination and
freedom and the color lines
and something accidentally been made
steered
by the rhythmic breathing and the chance
of harmony
I think for this painting the whole
process for me
is more like a very poetic way
i'm on i'm spontaneously on an adventure
in order to seek something unknown
but beautiful
and I use the water-based media on
handmade paper
this combination for me is a combination of
love because
I think the sensitivity in between each
other
really creates a lot of possibilities
and miracles for me
I cannot do wrong but sometimes i feel
very very exciting because i need to
paint without fear
thank you very much.
Thank you ZI Ling 
this is wonderful to hear you speaking
about your work this way I think
your work is wonderful and has so much
energy in it
and I really hope that perhaps we can
work together
going forward again in the future.
Thank you very much very looking forward to
this exhibition
Thank you
My next artist whom I will be speaking
to
is Steve Burden. Steve lives
in Somerset but his work is inspired by
growing up
at Pepys estate in Deptford south London
he investigates themes and ideas
associated
with British housing estate.
Steve I grew up on a communist housing
estate and when I saw your work I had
a strong reaction to it i'm really very
pleased
that you agreed to tell us more about it.
Great, thank you. So yeah so I grew up
on the Pepys estate which is a kind of
classic
post-war brutalist housing estate
in London. It's right on the river
thames
I was born in Greenwich which is to the
right of the estate and went to school
in Bermondsey another famous area in
London
which is to the to the left so if you
used to go
down the river thames towards
Westminster
the the kind of the my practice
is all is all really based around the
Pepys estate
and I kind of explore
diff what I call chimneys associated
with the estate so when
when the practice when I started
painting the Pepys
the paintings were very autobiographical
and based upon my own experiences
growing up there it was a very violent
it was a very rough estate there were
lots of social issues on the estate.
All council, some of the
some of the flats you know you you like
my parents paid their rent but other
other flats the rent was paid for by the
state and that came with its own kind of
issues.
I also look at kind of the
architecture so I look at the
architecture of the estate you know it's
very interesting as I say
it's built in a brutalist style at
the time when it was built in the 60s
they were the tallest residential towers
in London
the taller, the Barbican came afterwards
so and i'm kind of quite interested
in the kind of the origins of kind of
post-war modernism as an architectural
style so
I also look at the kind of the history
of the estate so the fabric of
the estate so
it's named after Samuel Pepys who was a
great diarist but actually
everyone talks about his diary but he
was actually
a very important statesman and actually
kind of run the navy for King Charles II
and then subsequently King James the
first and
the reason the Pepys estate is called
the Pepys estate is because
by the time Samuel Pepys came along
there was a
dockyard on the site of the Pepys estate
which was subsequently bombed during the
Second World War so
the history is, is there and it's kind of
it's you know i consider myself to be a
proud Londoner i'm you know i'm from
London my parents are from London my
grandparents are from London
and that kind of weaves its way into the
into the work.
This particular painting that's been
selected for the exhibition
really kind of, it's quite a political
painting
and you know normally
my kind of paintings that I produce
there's a lot of allegory in the
painting they're about personal memory
they're about personal experiences
and I kind of dovetail in mythology or
history
whatever I kind of want really into the
kind of conceptual narrative of the
painting but there's a very strong
conceptual narrative in
all of the work at least that's what I
want I don't want anything to be
arbitrary you know nothing's kind of
overly abstracted
there's resonance in all of the work and
with this particular painting I wanted
to talk about
the fact that i'm from a working class
background
Thank you Steve this is great and I
always kind of thought
that architecture, forms people who
live within it
Yes
 and yeah what you have described
I think is uh is a it's really true 
Yeah
Could you just one more question, so when you
moved from London
to West Country to Somerset,
how did that experience change you
or had it, did it?
Well it definitely
changed me but I always
I always said to my, I always said to
my partner
that I mean i've lived in lots of cities
around the world
i've lived in New York i've lived lived
and worked in New York
London, Lisbon
Australia, Sydney, Melbourne
Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha
you know, you know i've lived all around
the world and for me
London will always be the governor.
Earlier I spoke about the personal
experience which is present
in each artwork and actually you have
just reminded me
of exactly that your piece unsettles and
presents a challenging
experience by pointing a finger at a
particular anxiety currently occurring
in some areas of the British life and I
have a feeling that your peace in our
exhibition
will stir up some debate.
The last artist i will be speaking to is
Salisbury-based
Jane Walker. Jane was the winner
of the public vote from our last year
Summer Open exhibition
her work also accompanied and
illustrated
one of our creative inspiration call
outs
part of the Wiltshire Creative Connects
online programme.
Jane is well known for her distinctive
depiction
of Salisbury the emphasis
in her work is on a particular type of
light
the golden hour for the city
and in her paintings of Salisbury
there are no people
as we entered into the lockdown the city
of Salisbury
appeared just like one of Jane's
paintings.
Jane can you please tell us what
inspires you
and why you see Salisbury this way.
Well to be honest I love architecture
I really love architecture
and particularly sort of 19th century
and early 20th century
sort of industrial architecture and i
love it when it's in really intense
light
and that can be sort of really early
morning daylight or evening daylight but
I really
like it in sort of evening sodium light
as well street lighting
and also when you know buildings are
just lit up inside
by sort of you know porch lights or
living room lights and things like that
I don't know what I mean I dream about
things like that as well i dream about
architecture with light on it and i've
always been fascinated by it.
I mean there's no real deliberate
reason why I don't put
people in it's just that i'm just
interested in architecture
with intense light in some way it just I
don't know it just
it just makes me feel a certain way and
so I try to put that across in the
paintings.
I've only been painting like that
for the last several years I mean I
trained as an illustrator of
of natural history and
and so I was painting exclusively sort
of birds, flowers, animals, fish that kind
of thing mainly birds and then
I didn't paint for years and years and
years became more interested in
artists that painted architecture
particularly Edward Hopper and painters
like that
and when I started again I really
thought that I would have to go to sort
of big industrial cities or London or
you know places like that
and the more I walked around Salisbury
the more I thought, it
has a little bit of everything. I've
lived here for well you know getting on
for 30 years
and I just would walk down streets and
think oh that looks good that looks good
and the more I walked around Salisbury
the more I
saw that there was a lot a lot to paint
here.
The city is easy to walk around it's
easy to walk around in the evening
first thing in the morning it's very
compact but also you know
and there's also there's lots of pubs on
corners and sort of
takeaways and lots of sort of edges and
corners of buildings that are lit up
and there's loads of paint because I
don't paint sort of whole street scenes
and vistas of buildings they're just
sometimes just the edge of one building
or one house
and actually just outside the city
there's lots of sort of victorian houses
and i'm
working i'm very interested at the
moment in Wyndham road and i'm walking
up down there a lot i'm working on some
paintings of that
and there are some places that i've
painted several times. The only thing i'm
a little bit worried about is
they're removing all of the sodium
lights around city centres and it's sensible to have white
street lights they're safer they're more
practical but it does
take away that mysterious way that
streets and cities look at night
so i'll probably be concentrating on a
lot more sort of intense daytime scenes
so yeah so just really buildings with
light on them and intense lights
is it's the kind of art I love looking
at but
yeah that's what I really love to do.
Thank you Jane you are right I have
noticed
the gradual change in light in many
parts of Salisbury
and you have just reminded me that
artists
through their hands and minds take on
the role of documenting the times as it
passes
as i mentioned Jane Walker was the
public vote
winner last year this year i'm really
pleased to say
that we have two prizes as part of our
Summer Open exhibition.
The public vote prize is now
The Memory Fine Art prize and will be
announced
at the end of the exhibition.
We also have The Noble Arts prize
which is a prize for the under 25s.
This prize is sponsored by Sharon Noble
and Noble Art supplies.
Thank you all for watching and before I
go I would like to let you know
that the exhibition is held at Salisbury
Arts Centre
and is open to visit in our opening
hours
Tuesday to Saturday. You can also book a
small group
curated visit by getting in touch with
us
when you come in please observe the
rules of social distancing
and do sit down for a drink and buy to
eat to support
our friendly cafe.
The Summer Open is a selling exhibition
and if you fall in love with a piece
make it yours.
By buying artworks you are not only
endorsing the artist's practice
but you are also supporting our
organisation to
carry on with our artistic programme.
Artists and the whole creative industry
took a huge knock in the recent months
and your custom will be appreciated now
more than ever before.
These difficult days definitely require
creative minds I will finish off by
looking
at a piece by Alison Carter.
This piece lays out in British sign
language fingerspelling
the words in England's green and
pleasant land
from the famous poem by William Blake.
I can't help but note that the events
from our recent history
Novichok,  Brexit whichever side of the
fence you sit on
and Covid 19 rather brings about
an association with the dark satanic
mills
also mentioned in the same poem.
What this piece does really very well
is reach out, communicates
and connects and that is precisely what
art sets out to do.
Thank you for watching
take care, stay safe and see you soon!
