Woking, The Lightbox, Parallel Lines: Drawing and Sculpture, 22 June – 25 August 2019;
Woking, The Lightbox, Redressing the Balance: Women Artists from The Ingram Collection, 11 August – 20 September 2020
From the Nets Series by Nicola Anthony. It was made for Parallel Lines: Drawing & Sculpture, an exhibition at The Lightbox of work by members of the Royal Society of Sculptors, made in response to key 20th century sculptures from The Ingram Collection.
Saving Our Souls was made in response to John Behan’s work Ghost Boat. The perilous past of the Irish incorporates a long history of war, famine and migration. “I have long been inspired by Behan’s harrowing and powerful boat sculptures, depicting how Irish travels across the seas have ended in separation from families, loss of status and identity, or death. Pan forward to the current migrant crisis and we can draw many comparisons. To me the other side of the story is what happens under the water in the hidden currents of reaction: The opposing responses of either capturing and detaining these fleeing shoals of people, or helping them to safety.” Nicola works with NGOs to tell stories of present day immigrants in her work, and the artworks in this series of Net Drawings are a more abstract way of describing the complications of such upheavals, revealing unexpected forms. They become allegorical for the journeys we all make at one time or another, in differing levels of safety, to find a promised New World. Nicola draws by burning the surface of calligraphy paper. Her medium is the charcoal brown as the paper changes state.
