Seen Not Heard - Solo Show by Zena Blackwell

About

Zena Blackwell's paintings are in high colour, with flattened skin tones contrasting with areas of pattern which stylistically provide a sense of claustrophobia, an intensity and shift in the ‘normal’ scale of things. The sources for her imagery are the threads of family life; domestic scenarios including constant observations of her children in all scenarios. However, what sets them apart is the presence of the Mother’s viewpoint, providing a challenging sub-text running throughout the work. These are not ordinary portraits or figurative compositions; underneath the witnessed moment; a snapshot of childhood, with its associative assumed references of freedom from the world of adult responsibility, is there as a constant threat.

Blackwell’s paintings challenge convention on many levels: that of the license to represent images of children, which in today’s world are strictly within the regulated area of parental consent, but often flaunted as daily snapshots via social media for all known and unknown viewers to see.

The work is brave in its addressing not only the less than potential cuteness of childhood, inverting it and investing it with potential malevolence.

In times when the voices of women as mothers making work about these subject areas seem under-acknowledged by gallery exhibition programmers in general, and consequently invisible to audiences, this show could be seen as a timely and important marker in the journey of the feminist mind, achieving the currency it deserves.

Zena relocated to Cardiff three years ago after spending 20 years in London where she completed a Masters in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins and a degree at Wimbledon School of Art. She was recently selected to exhibit in Y Lle Celf at the Senedd for the Eisteddfod and secured an Arts Council of Wales Grant for the production of works for this exhibition.

Zena Blackwell will be in conversation with Zoë Gingell on November 17th 2018 at MADE gallery at 7pm as part of a specially programmed day long symposium ‘Maternal Attitudes’ co-hosted by Dr. Emily Underwoord Lee (University of South Wales) and the Mothersuckers project, with the funded support of the Arts Council of Wales.