Beaux Arts Bath
5 May 2022: Domestic Bliss – Works Inspired by Lockdown. Plus New Ceramics by Sophie Cook

DOMESTIC BLISS
Inspired by Lockdown

Please join us for the opening on 7 May

Nathan Ford, Anna 4.22, Oil on Birch Panel 73 x 57 cm. £3,500

 

Out of the confinements and privations of lockdown comes Domestic Bliss, an exhibition of works looking at how some of our regular artists (and some new faces) were inspired during lockdown. Still lifes, family portraits, items of food, everyday objects. For many artists, as mainly solitary beings , it was a case of plus ça change, or at worst an adaptation to circumstance.

Comhghall Casey, Wind-Up Boat, Oil on Board, 25 x 30 cm. £2,200

Showing alongside the paintings and drawings of Akash Bhatt, Susanna Bauer, Alex Callaway, Anna Calleja, Will Calver, Lewis Chamberlain, Comhghall Casey, Mark Entwisle, Linda Felcey, Nathan Ford, Donald MacDonald, Rob Pittam, Helen Simmonds, we have a colourful collection of porcelain by Sophie Cook.

27. Large Pod, Unglazed White 31 cm. £245 19. Medium Wide Bottle, Dry Dark Grey Blue Glaze 37 cm. £245 4. Small Squat Pod Dry Coral Glaze Porcelain 18cm. £210 Porcelain 25 x 30 cm. £2,400

 

Ceramicist Sophie Cook will be in the gallery on Saturday afternoon between 1 and 4.

The sculptor Anna Gillespie will also be in attendance. Her talk and tour begins at 2 p.m. so if you would like to hear Anna speak about her new body of work, please come along.

Anna Gillespie, Where Now, 1 of 9, Bronze, 88 x 75 x 21 cm
Where Now (View 1) Ed. of 9, Bronze, 88 x 75 x 21 cm. £15,000

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Don’t Hesitate by Mary Oliver

Akash Bhatt, Blue Blanket, Mixed media on paper 92 x 59 cm £2,200

When all the others were away at Mass
I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
They broke the silence, let fall one by one
Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
Cold comforts set between us, things to share
Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
From each other’s work would bring us to our senses.

So while the parish priest at her bedside
Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying
And some were responding and some crying
I remembered her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives–
Never closer the whole rest of our lives.

When all the others were away at Mass by Seamus Heaney

Thank you for reading.

Aidan