In response to the launch of the second issue of Social Works? Open, the world’s first artist-led journal for social practice art, and our weekend of events, Art in Words, Five2Watch this week is all about text. Featuring work by Colin Anthony Graham, Russell Jakubowski, Yoke, Victoria Lucas and Robert Foster.
Union Blacks: Windrush flag, 2020
This flag documents a prominent moment in British history. On 22nd June 1948, the Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury in Essex. On board were hundreds of pioneers, including the late Sam King MBE, travelling from the Caribbean to start a new life in Britain. Some of their names make up this flag. These names are taken from public record documents and Sam King’s book, ‘Climbing up the Rough Side of the Mountain’.
'What I Dreamed’, 2018 - 2019
Made during my residency at Watts Gallery and displayed adjacent to a pathway which ran around the glass walled gallery at Watts.
A further response to an exhibition which focussed on the poet Christina Rossetti.
Two lines from her poem 'The Convent Threshold' take shape and emerge from the mind of Christina Rossetti.
Again, I have taken the outline of her face from a drawing by her brother Gabriel Dante.
The words read -
“I tell you what I dreamed last night:
It was not dark, it was not light,”
Her serene profile masks perhaps the tumult she feels at a time of indecision. Feeling and meaning merge and she turns, as ever, to the formation of words as a means of expression and clarification. Those words becoming more physically organised in this piece as they exit her mind.
Height 1.3m
Reflection of Time, 2018
Mirror
Produced as part of solo exhibition 'We Can Only See Today' at Ty Pawb, Wrexham.
Part 2 of two mirror pieces hung opposite each other at either end of the gallery.
Progressing forward while simultaneously returning again and again to the same point.
Tongue Twister I - III, 2018
A series of Risograph prints have been developed in response to vocal exercise training videos that are supposed to improve voice projection and confidence in female speakers. Lucas’ Tongue Twister series presents inspiring affirmations or cautionary statements that can be applied to a variety of circumstances.
Symbols and secrets writ, 2020
Created for the exhibition Interesting Times in Venice at London Metropolitan University in 2020, the series Symbols and secrets writ developed poetry, notations and incidental photographs taken whilst participating in the Venice Steward Research Fellowship funded by The British Council and Wysing Arts Centre in 2019.
The resulting digital prints layer image, text and textures to create a series of A3 prints inspired by the posters and graffiti woven into the architecture of the city of Venice.
Reflections, seams and fractures run throughout the works, offering an abstracted glimpse of the fabric of Venice itself, with its labyrinthine streets, glimmering canals and dizzying potential for interpretation and reinvention.
Published 16 September 2021