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Look. See. Interpret

An Exhibition of Women Artists’ Work to Celebrate International
Women’s Month 2019

8 March to 28 March 2019

Artists Lucille Dweck, Mary Osinibi, Desrie Thomson-George and Jean Joseph exhibited their diverse work in Look See Interpret at the newly launched arc Gallery, in Tottenham, in celebration of International Women’s Month.

Whilst championing this year’s theme of ‘Balance for Better’ Look See Interpret celebrated women’s achievements, and the perennial concern for a more gender-equal world by focusing on the diverse art of women artists and invited viewers to slow down their gaze.

There was an application in traditional methodologies and an integration of new materials and techniques. Their art communicated through liminal process and engaged in dialogue in an effort to broach or shout on their specific themes.

Visitors were treated to works reflecting on relationships, cultural identity, the effects of wars, African-Caribbean history, identity, and culture in a variety of disciplines, and materials such as ceramics, sculptures, textiles, and paintings.

The exhibition included associated events such as Slow Art Day which invited visitors to enjoy their own choice of artwork and Art Ad Lib Chronicles: Artists’ Talk, with Desrie Thomson-George and Mary Osinibi  who reflected on their inspirations and creative processes followed by a Q & A.

About the Artists

Title : Son Sparkles
Year : 2019
Medium : Oil on Canvas
Size : 81 x 66 cm
Title : Underwater Bubbles (Plummeting the Depths)
Year : 2010
Medium : Oil on canvas
Size : 76 x 60 cm
Title : Sink or Swim
Year : 2011
Medium : Oil on canvas
Size : 92 x W 61 cm.
Title : Ellie Underwater
Year : 2012
Medium : Oil on Canvas
Size : 77 x 104 cm

Lucille Dweck

Lucille Dweck uses her art for inner reflection and to claim a voice that can communicate her experience and philosophy to the viewer.  Working mostly with oil, each work gives value and seeks to elevate her from the misogynistic era she believes she grew up in. There was then a strong sense of being misunderstood and overlooked. She surmised that if she could speak in another language she could be heard. Her art aims to speak and provide certainty to that language.

Educated at St Martins and the Byam Shaw School of Art in the 1980’s, Dweck immediately began teaching life drawing at art schools, which progressed her fascination with the figure. She has completed residencies at various institutions, including The London Hospital in 1988, which culminated with mural paintings at the West Middlesex Hospital and Central foundation Boys school.

Educated at St Martins and the Byam Shaw School of Art in the 1980’s, Dweck immediately began teaching life drawing at art schools, which progressed her fascination with the figure. She has completed residencies at various institutions, including The London Hospital in 1988, which culminated with mural paintings at the West Middlesex Hospital and Central foundation Boys school.

“I create canvases that invite you to enjoy nature’s beauty while immersing you in the mood of the moment.”

There is a prevailing preoccupation with light – with work that depicts the way in which light itself can change our entire perception of familiar settings. We are confronted with natural environments, but this time through windows and reflections or sunlight. This is infused with the awareness of the materiality of the paint and a prevailing interest in the complexities of representation.

Title : Hail Maria
Year : 2019
Medium : Mixed media on plasterboard
Size : 63 x 66 cm.
Title : Elements
Year : 2018
Medium : Mixed media on plasterboard
Size : 90 x 58 cm.
Title : Seeds of Revolution
Year : 2011
Medium : paper plaster on canvas (Diptych)
Size : 100 x 40 x 5 cm.

Jean Joseph

Jean Joseph’s art is driven by narrative, which in turn informs the materials of each construction. Joseph’s interest in the human environment influences the appearance in her work of the built and the deconstructed. These mainly consist of plastic media, accentuated with metal and wood in an amalgam of paint. She enjoys navigating and linking the middle ground between two and three dimensions. Harmonious or conflicting blends are encouraged to emerge from the ‘ground’ surface. Layers of intermittent bas-relief are elevated from the foundations of canvas or plasterboard. She continues to explore the use of other materials and techniques, such as arc welding.

Jean Joseph’s art is driven by narrative, which in turn informs the materials of each construction. Joseph’s interest in the human environment influences the appearance in her work of the built and the deconstructed. These mainly consist of plastic media, accentuated with metal and wood in an amalgam of paint. She enjoys navigating and linking the middle ground between two and three dimensions. Harmonious or conflicting blends are encouraged to emerge from the ‘ground’ surface. Layers of intermittent bas-relief are elevated from the foundations of canvas or plasterboard. She continues to explore the use of other materials and techniques, such as arc welding.

“The process is just as crucial as the endpoint whether serendipitous discoveries or planned outcomes.”

In the 1990s Joseph completed a degree in Spatial Design at what is now London Metropolitan University and a Diploma in Facilitated Learning at Camberwell College of Arts.  However, she gives equitable importance to her engagement practice that followed. This has encompassed community projects and family workshops. She has partnered in art projects with schools and developed youth-led programmes within arts & libraries departments, archives and institutions, such as the Museum of London.

Her other preoccupation has been in curatorial work, art writing and collaborating with fellow artists.

Title : Weeping Mother
Year : 2016
Medium : Acrylic on Canvas
Size : 150 x 123 cm.
Title : Human Suffering Series
Year : 2019
Medium :Acrylic & Digital Art on Hahnemühle paper
Size :76.2x 76.2cm.
Limited Edition of 3
Title : Little Girl In White, Human Suffering Series
Year : 2014
Medium : Acrylic & Digital Art on Hahnemühle paper
Size : 76.2 x 76.2 cm.
Limited Edition of 3

Mary Osinibi

Mary Osinibi is a painter, illustrator and digital artist. She was born in Nigeria and attended University of the Arts, London (UAL), receiving a distinction in art and design, and a BA in Graphic Design at University of the Creative Arts (UCA). Her work has been published in the D&AD Student Awards. She features and is part of an online gallery, Sedition Artists. Osinibi has exhibited alongside established artists like Barry Martin – associated with the kinetic art movement of the 1960s. Her body of work ranges from collaborative projects with charities and organisations such as Migrant Voice and Save The Children. The aim was to create awareness on issues that affect her local community and further afield.

Her signature style of painting is built up from multiple layers of applied acrylic paint from a broad palette – often merged with digital art. It is a combination of media that evokes the notion that not everything is as it appears. Osinibi sees this technique of isolating a creative intention as a re-visioning of the artistic process.

Having engaged subjects as diverse as the effects of past and present wars, human migrations and colonisation, Osinibi’s visualisations are a form of abstract portraiture of real people, as well as reproducing and restoring ancient past visuals. She believes, we can learn from their stories to avoid making the same mistakes.

Title : Say It Loud: : I’m Black and I’m Proud, Ceramic, glazes
Size : 77 x 40 cm.
Title : Nubian Reverie
Medium : Ceramic
Size : 60 x 40 cm.

Desrie Thomson-George

Desrie Thomson-George is a Guyana born UK-based sculptor with a background in publishing. Her work has its basis in the social, cultural and political awareness of her existence as a Black woman brought up in the West and its effects. Her practice focuses on art for empowerment to provoke dialogue and affect change.

Through the creation of figurative sculptures and installations Desrie tells the story of an African Diasporic woman, her struggles and her journey. Her invisibility while being visible, and the irony of this. She experiments with recycled metal, glass, paper and textiles, sometimes pressed into jesmonite and plaster moulds, to reflect the complexities of her experience and who she is. The materials are selected deliberately to symbolise different states of being. For example: metal for strength, latex – invisibility and vulnerability, glass – fragility and paper – media or propaganda.

After receiving a BA (Hons) Fine Art Degree from Nottingham Trent University she co-founded the publishing house, Black Ink, where she illustrated children’s books then worked as a freelance graphic artist. She recently collaborated with Numbi Arts in The Gambia working with local artists to exchange knowledge by ‘giving back’. In 1999 she was the recipient of the Candace Magazine International Black Woman Achievement Award for Race Relations and runner up for the Surrey Society Sculpture Prize in 2017.