Zuleika Gallery is delighted to announce that it is bringing the work of two female artists, Frances Aviva Blane and Marice Cumber, both based in London, to the Woodstock Gallery this autumn. These artists bring a wealth of experience to their work and their joint exhibition, The Brave Truth, will take place from 10 November until 9 December 2022. Although working in different mediums, both artists are not afraid to show their vulnerabilities in their work or to explore the darker depths of existence. Through their work they bring to the surface hidden anxieties that well beneath in all of us, if only we were brave enough to admit it. These artists throw a light onto the essence of being human, and through the simmering pathos, inject their work with verve and humour.
Frances Aviva Blane is known for her expressionist paintings that take as their subject the symbiotic disintegration of paint and personality. She states, “My paintings exist not to be understood but experienced.’’ As well as purely abstract paintings, Blane paints heads as you’ve never seen before. One such work, included in this exhibition, is of the renowned psychoanalyst Susie Orbach. Orbach has co-written three books with the artist and also appeared with her in the documentary film ‘Two Metres Apart’ made by award winning Director Penny Woolcock in 2020. Blane’s work is potent, uncompromising, and, at times, unsettling. Tess Jaray RA has commented: “This is painting straight from the heart to the canvas. It convinces us because nothing is arbitrary or false”.
Following her sell-out show at the London Art Fair earlier this year, ceramicist Marice Cumber has produced a new body of work for this exhibition that continues to explore her innermost thoughts and personal mantras. The brightly coloured hand-built vessels at first sight belie the dark thoughts that birthed them. After finding herself in the midst of a breakdown during her mid-forties whilst in a high-powered job, Cumber “spent a year crying, seriously depressed”, while also “trying to be normal” for her children. She sought extensive counselling while recording her inner most thoughts in little black notebooks she would conceal from the outside world. As she returned to health, she set up a charity that provides creative workshops for people who are homeless, and having had a creative background herself, returned to making pots as part of her recovery. “As I describe my work I think about honesty, as I don’t need to hide anymore or make an impression on anyone or feel shame or embarrassment about my emotions and reflections on my life and what I feel. I can just tell it how it is, and that honesty has appeal and truth to it and so I have given myself permission at long last to accept myself and to communicate who I really am to others.”
