Mediterranean

About

The usually cheerful paraphernalia of seaside holidays are twisted in Black Beach Room inferring something more ominous; a familiar beachside scene hints at conflict, absence and death.  The gendered symbols of childhood games become suddenly more sinister when reminded of their real-life applications.   

Reflecting a modern-day experience of migration, the exhibition opens with mobile phones, often the most important objects carried by people in transit- a vital link to past, future, even rescue. SOS: Life Savings (Fishers of Men series) asks you to consider, and even discuss, your experiences of being saved.  If the phone rings, we invite you to answer it. 

The exhibition draws attention to this contemporary manifestation of a prehistoric human compulsion to move in response to threat: the rice that calcifies the footwear that carries the person away from danger, points to the universal need for safety and sustenance (Are we the Son Worshippers?).  

The ocean represents both the means of escape and also mortal danger.  In Wave-Raft and the Rafters of the Waves the sea becomes a raft made of cast ladders and painted satins.  Symbols reminiscent of social media reflect the way most of us experience these distant events while the artist’s own experience of living in North Africa and the Middle East seeps through in the unconscious inclusion of Arabic looking characters across shroud like forms.

A timely exhibition that leads us to contemplate our own experiences in the context of the experiences of others and uses the shoreline (local or distant) as a metaphor for considering preoccupations with leisure alongside those of survival. 

Acheson-Elmassry attended the Glasgow School of Art and Leeds Metropolitan and has exhibited both nationally and internationally. Having lived in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia, she is now based in North Wales.