About Time
CHRIS AVIS is showing me around her new exhibition at the Park Theatre – it’s an hour before the private view and she is unusually tentative. She seems almost taken aback by the work she has created.
The solo show, Time Passing, is a collection of close portraits, of women aged 55 and over, photographed over the last two years. Some stare out at the viewer, others are caught mid-blink, their age lending a ghostly veil to the pose.
Chris experimented directly onto the prints throwing talcum powder, charcoal pastel and powder creating rich blue veins and stony veneers; there is great strength in the prints where talcum powder reaches over the faces like encroaching ice.
“I want the power of the person,” she said. “I’m looking for the power of a person in their mid-80s. Sometimes they don’t recognise that power.”
Park Theatre’s creative director Melli Bond jumped at the chance to show Chris’s work – “we have a shared passion for older women,” she said. “I immediately connected with the work. We champion plays that resonate with older women, so this is perfect.”
Chris’s campaigning for greater visibility for older artists saw her explore European art galleries’ misconceptions and prejudice with the Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship in 2013. “The sort of artist I have become... I can’t tell you where this is going,” she said. “It’s about time passing through to time past. In some ways I am taking myself through to the end. It’s exploring what I leave behind.”
She has just returned from Germany where her film piece Third Age – incorporating images from the show – was screened at the Schlachten Contemporary Arts Festival. Chris can now add video artist to her blooming resumé .
The exhibition will grow on August 21 with the addition of collages created by the art class at Drovers Community Centre in North Road and portraits of the theatre’s Park Players, a drama group of mostly over 55-year-olds.
Published: 24 July, 2015 Islington Tribune written by Amy Smith
.
CHRIS AVIS is showing me around her new exhibition at the Park Theatre – it’s an hour before the private view and she is unusually tentative. She seems almost taken aback by the work she has created.
The solo show, Time Passing, is a collection of close portraits, of women aged 55 and over, photographed over the last two years. Some stare out at the viewer, others are caught mid-blink, their age lending a ghostly veil to the pose.
Chris experimented directly onto the prints throwing talcum powder, charcoal pastel and powder creating rich blue veins and stony veneers; there is great strength in the prints where talcum powder reaches over the faces like encroaching ice.
“I want the power of the person,” she said. “I’m looking for the power of a person in their mid-80s. Sometimes they don’t recognise that power.”
Park Theatre’s creative director Melli Bond jumped at the chance to show Chris’s work – “we have a shared passion for older women,” she said. “I immediately connected with the work. We champion plays that resonate with older women, so this is perfect.”
Chris’s campaigning for greater visibility for older artists saw her explore European art galleries’ misconceptions and prejudice with the Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship in 2013. “The sort of artist I have become... I can’t tell you where this is going,” she said. “It’s about time passing through to time past. In some ways I am taking myself through to the end. It’s exploring what I leave behind.”
She has just returned from Germany where her film piece Third Age – incorporating images from the show – was screened at the Schlachten Contemporary Arts Festival. Chris can now add video artist to her blooming resumé .
The exhibition will grow on August 21 with the addition of collages created by the art class at Drovers Community Centre in North Road and portraits of the theatre’s Park Players, a drama group of mostly over 55-year-olds.
Published: 24 July, 2015 Islington Tribune written by Amy Smith
.