Drawing from the Past: Celebrating Dorothy Mead and Edna Mann" – a special life drawing class led by artist Rachel Mercer
Mar
28
4:00 PM16:00
Workshop

Drawing from the Past: Celebrating Dorothy Mead and Edna Mann" – a special life drawing class led by artist Rachel Mercer

"Drawing from the Past: Celebrating Dorothy Mead and Edna Mann" – a special life drawing class led by artist Rachel Mercer (@rachelmercerartist)! 

 

Date: 28th March 2024

Time: 4pm - 6pm

Location: Borough Road Gallery, London South Bank University

 

As part of the current exhibition “The line is an unreal Thing: Dorothy Mead and Edna Mann”, this special life drawing class offers a great opportunity to connect with the artistic legacy of these two remarkable women.

 

Under Rachel's guidance, explore the art of life drawing using charcoal. With a mix of short and longer poses this class will explore the principles of life drawing. Exercises will help engage hand and eye and encourage sustained observation. We will be using charcoal to explore both line and tone and consider form and structure in the drawing.

 

No experience needed – all levels welcome!

 

Admission is free, but spots are limited. Contact gzd.altun@gmail.com to secure your place.

 

Don't miss this chance to draw inspiration from the past and celebrate Dorothy Mead and Edna Mann's artistic legacy! 

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‘The line is an unreal thing’: Dorothy Mead and Edna Mann
Jan
19
to Mar 29

‘The line is an unreal thing’: Dorothy Mead and Edna Mann

The gallery is open Tuesday - Friday 2 -5 PM for the duration of the exhibition.

The Borough Road Gallery at London South Bank University is delighted to present an exhibition of the work of Dorothy Mead and Edna Mann. Both former alumnae of London South Bank University – then known as the Borough Polytechnic – and two of the few female artists to have attended the classes of artist-educator, David Bomberg (1890-1957). In showcasing important yet little-known paintings and drawings dating from the 1940s to the 1970s drawn from The Sarah Rose Collection – itself representative of a key moment in the University’s history –, the exhibition seeks to highlight the individual nature of both women’s undercelebrated achievements.



Born in East London in 1926, Edna Mann was an artist, teacher and mother described by her siblings as a ‘brave’, ‘vivacious’ ‘lifeforce’. First educated at Romford County High School for Girls, Mann went on to study at the South-East Technical College and Dagenham School of Art where she encountered artist-teacher David Bomberg. It was rare for female students to attend Bomberg’s classes like Dorothy Mead, Mann was initially sceptical. But in 1944 she followed him to the City Literary Institute and subsequently to the Borough Polytechnic, now London South Bank University. Under Bomberg’s tutelage, Mann’s work included charcoal renderings of iconic buildings that she likely drew from sitting on the roof of the Borough Road building where she could see Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral and Cityscape. After becoming a mother, Mann’s artistic career was side-lined. Mann did maintain a creative practise throughout her life, writing a radio play for the BBC called The Leavers. Mann’s achievements at London South Bank University and as part of the Borough Group are largely unacknowledged, this exhibition is an incredibly rare opportunity to see Mann’s work on display to the public.



Dorothy Mead was born in London in 1928. Despite first lodging a formal protest against David Bomberg’s approach when she encountered him at the South-East Technical College and Dagenham School of Art – ‘I was 16 years at the time and understood little, but daily realise what I owe to him’ – Mead was subsequently won over, following Bomberg to the City Literary Institute and, in 1945, to the Borough Polytechnic. Having become devoted to his challenging example in 1946 Mead became a founder member of the Borough Group, formed, in the artist’s own words, ‘to ‘further the aims of David Bomberg and to establish his students as professional painters’. Bomberg’s classes at the Borough Polytechnic broke the form of teacher demonstrations instead he encouraged his students to learn through doing. She exhibited alongside its other members including Dennis Creffield and Cliff Holden until the group disbanded in 1951.



Following in Bomberg’s footsteps in 1956 Mead enrolled as a mature student at the Slade School of Art where she continued to flourish, influencing younger artists

including Ray Atkins, Mario Dubsky, Anthony Green, Ben Levine and Patrick Procktor. Dubsky wrote that ‘Under the mentorship of Dorothy Mead, whose work…seemed challenging, radical and heroic, … I wholeheartedly subscribed to the Bombergian approach’, while Green recalled her encouraging and ‘life-enhancing’ presence. Mead was president of the Young Contemporaries (now known as New Contemporaries) from 1958-59, organising the tenth annual exhibition of Painting, Sculpture, Graphic Art, Drawing and stained-glass work by students in attendance at art schools across the country.



And yet despite winning the Steer Medal for Landscape Painting and the Slade School of Fine Art Prize for Figure Painting, Mead was forced to leave without a degree. She failed to sit the perspective exam and Professor Coldstream’s refused to accept her thesis in which she stated her belief in ‘the scientific method, academic attitude, and scholarship’ as ‘antipathetic to creation’ and, more specifically, ‘alien to me in my work as a painter’. Key to understanding Mead’s audacity and originality as an artist and her uninhibited yet discerning handling of paint, is a statement made in an undated letter to Andrew Forge: ‘It seems that I do not toe the line. I recognise no line. I accept only myself. The line is an unreal thing to me, and the gamble on myself has to be made, not just in energy and work, but in self-belief.’



Although included in the 1964 Arts Council exhibition, 6 Young Painters along with David Hockney, Peter Blake and Bridget Riley, and an active member of the London Group since 1960 and its first female president, Mead was never given the opportunity of a solo show. The relative neglect Mead suffered during her lifetime undoubtedly owes something to then prevalent attitudes towards women as creators and disseminators of radical ideas.

The line is an unreal thing: Dorothy Mead and Edna Mann is an exploration of two under-researched artists within the context of the institution that shaped their artistic practice.

With special thanks to research curator to Dr Nicola Baird.









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Hero of her own life: telling the stories of Dorothy Mead and Gwen John
Jul
5
6:00 PM18:00

Hero of her own life: telling the stories of Dorothy Mead and Gwen John

Currently, SOLD OUT. But do keep checking back here for updates.

Join curator and art historian Alicia Foster to hear about the life and work of Dorothy Mead and Gwen John, two painters who made their careers in the art world of the twentieth century.

The artist Dorothy Mead (1928-1975) studied at the Borough Polytechnic (now London South Bank University) in the 1940s and 1950s. London South Bank University’s A David Bomberg Legacy: the Sarah Rose Collection includes the largest holding of Mead’s artwork in a public collection. These paintings are showcased in the +Archive: Dorothy Mead app.

The artist Gwen John (1876 -1939) was born in Wales and studied at the Slade School of Art. Her work is now receiving greater attention - Alicia Foster's exhibition: Gwen John Art and Life in London and Paris (Pallant and tour, 2023-4) opens on 13 May 2023. Gwen John's work is the subject of the second +Archive: Gwen John app, launching this year.

Alicia will also discuss her experience of writing about and curating the work of women artists today.

Booking essential. Click here to reserve your ticket.

Event timings:

6.00pm Doors Open

6.30pm Talk and Q&A

8.00pm Drinks Reception

8.30pm END

Speaker Biography:

Dr Alicia Foster is an art historian, curator and novelist. Alicia has curated three major exhibitions showing the work of twentieth-century women artists: Radical Women, Jessica Dismorr and her Contemporaries (Pallant House Gallery, 2019), Nina Hamnett (Charleston Trust, 2021) and the forthcoming Gwen John Art and Life in London and Paris (Pallant and tour, 2023-4). Previous publications include: Gwen John (Tate, 1999), the first complete survey of women artists in Tate collections Tate Women Artists (Tate, 2004), and Nina Hamnett (Eiderdown, 2021). Her novel Warpaint was published by Penguin in 2013. Her forthcoming critical biography Gwen John, Art and Life in London and Paris (Thames & Hudson) is published this May. Alicia has also written about the artist Dorothy Mead for Art UK. Follow Alicia Foster on Twitter.

Event sponsorship:

This event has been organised in celebration of the +Archive: Dorothy Mead and Gwen John apps - created by researcher Dr Ana-Maria Herman - to bring attention to women artists. The Borough Road Collection Archive commissioned the +Archive: Dorothy Mead app to bring the artist's work to a wider audience. The +Archive: Gwen John app presents works from various collections (including those of the Tenby Museum & Art Gallery and Sheffield Museums), providing a view into aspects of John's life, work and technique.

The Dorothy Mead and Gwen John apps are available on the App Store and are free to download:

Download the +Archive: Dorothy Mead app

Download the +Archive: Gwen John app

Funding to develop the apps and in support of this event was received from London South Bank University and the Research Wales Innovation Fund at Swansea University.

Find out more about Dr Ana Maria Herman and her research

Borough Road Collection Archive

London South Bank University (LSBU) holds A David Bomberg Legacy: the Sarah Rose Collection, based at the university’s Borough Road Gallery. The collection brings together over 120 works of art by the important twentieth-century British artist David Bomberg and by a selection of the artists who studied with him when he taught at the Borough Polytechnic (now LSBU) from 1945 until 1953. These artists include Dorothy Mead, Edna Mann, Dennis Creffield, Cliff Holden and Miles Richmond, who are all represented in the Sarah Rose Collection. The Borough Road Collection Archive showcases their work through new research and writing, events and digital artworks.

You can follow the Borough Road Collection Archive on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

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Art Unlocked: A David Bomberg Legacy: The Sarah Rose Collection
Mar
15
5:30 PM17:30

Art Unlocked: A David Bomberg Legacy: The Sarah Rose Collection

For our latest talk, we are partnering with Art UK for an exciting exploration of some notable works from A David Bomberg Legacy: the Sarah Rose Collection on 15th March 2023, 5:30pm. Join Art UK and Emily Fuggle, Curator (Maternity Cover) to hear more about David Bomberg’s work as a teacher at the Borough Polytechnic and learn more about the Borough Group, the collective of artists formed by Bomberg’s students. Book your free ticket here.

Art Unlocked is an online event series brought to you by Art UK in collaboration with Bloomberg Philanthropies. Each week, different museum and gallery curators and directors from across the UK will deliver a 30-minute talk on selected works from their collection.

Art Unlocked is delivered over Zoom Webinar and can be accessed via the event page once you have registered. There will be a short Q&A session after the talk.

The talk is free but there is the option to donate to London South Bank University's Student Hardship Fund with your ticket. Any donations are greatly appreciated.

About A David Bomberg Legacy: the Sarah Rose Collection

London South Bank University (LSBU) holds A David Bomberg Legacy: the Sarah Rose Collection, based at the university’s Borough Road Gallery. The collection brings together over 120 works of art by the important twentieth-century British artist David Bomberg and by a selection of the artists who studied with him when he taught at the Borough Polytechnic (now LSBU) from 1945 until 1953. These artists include Dorothy Mead, Edna Mann, Dennis Creffield, Cliff Holden and Miles Richmond, who are all represented in the Sarah Rose Collection. The Borough Road Collection Archive showcases their work through new research and writing, events and digital artworks.

You can follow the Borough Road Gallery on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

About Art UK

Art UK is a cultural education charity on a mission to make the art in UK public collections accessible to everyone – for enjoyment, learning and research. They are bringing together the nation's art on one platform for the world to see. Art UK digitise artworks, tell the stories behind the art and create exciting opportunities for public interaction with art. They play a major role in supporting public art collections, by improving their accessibility and sustainability.

You can follow Art UK on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok and LinkedIn.

About Bloomberg Philanthropies

Through innovative partnerships and bold approaches, the Bloomberg Philanthropies arts programme works to increase access to culture and strengthen arts organisations. Through a wide range of dynamic partnerships with visual, performing and literary arts organisations, Bloomberg Philanthropies is committed to supporting the arts. The philanthropy works in over 170 countries and focuses on creating lasting change in five key areas: the Arts, Public Health, Environment, Education and Government Innovation.

For more information, please visit bloomberg.org or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and TikTok.

For any queries relating to this event or the Art Unlocked series, do not hesitate to contact jolif.guest@artuk.org.

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Bomberg at the Borough Road
Jun
1
to Sep 9
Exhibitions

Bomberg at the Borough Road

The exhibition is an exploration of David Bomberg’s time as a teacher at the Borough Polytechnic and the diverse works created by him and his students during this period. The exhibition includes portraits, cityscapes and figure paintings. Artworks from A David Bomberg Legacy - The Sarah Rose Collection including David Bomberg (1890–1957) and a selection of his students from Dorothy Mead (1928-1975), Cliff Holden (1919-2020), Miles Richmond (1922-2008), Dennis Creffield (1931-2018), Leslie Marr (1922-2021) and Edna Mann (1926-1985) make up the exhibition.

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Jul
20
2:00 PM14:00

Experimental Audio Guide Workshop

Contribute to a polyvocal, experimental audio guide of the Borough Road Collection Archive. The workshop is free but spaces are limited, reserve your spot here.

The Borough Road Collection Archive is a platform for experimentation, creative annotation and unexpected encounters with an online collection. The selection of digital objects includes images of Modern British artworks from A David Bomberg Legacy - The Sarah Rose Collection, archival material from London South Bank University, as well as contemporary artworks that respond to the collection, documentation and event records.

We are inviting participants to read and edit descriptions of online artworks that are documented in the wiki. We will add scripts and scores to the texts that we worked with, trying out individual and collective narration with our voices. Finally, we will record our contributions and upload them in the wiki to enrich the audio guide of the Borough Road Collection Archive.

The platform was built by media artist Artemis Gryllaki and curator/researcher Theresa Kneppers as part of her research with the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image using a media wiki. The workshop will be run in collaboration with media artist Artemis Gryllaki.

The workshop will take place online. No previous experience is needed to attend.

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Jul
13
2:00 PM14:00
Workshop

Sounding the Archive Workshop with Bill Daggs

Create an alternative gallery audio guide with artist Bill Daggs and fellow collaborators. We are inviting participants to create a collaborative, polyvocal audio guide of the online collection and archive.

Collaborators will work with an online wiki-based platform to interpret online artworks and create an audio guide of the Borough Road Collection Archive.

The Borough Road Collection Archive is a platform for experimentation, creative annotation and unexpected encounters with an online collection. The selection of digital objects includes images of Modern British artworks from A David Bomberg Legacy - The Sarah Rose Collection, archival material from London South Bank University, as well as contemporary artworks that respond to the collection, documentation, and event records.

The platform was built by media artist Artemis Gryllaki and curator/researcher Theresa Kneppers as part of her research with the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image using a media wiki. The workshops will be run in collaboration with artist Bill Daggs.

The workshop will take place online. No previous experience is needed to attend but spaces are limited so please book your place here.

sounding the - Borough Road Collection Archive_Posters.png
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Mar
4
to Mar 7

In the heart of the whirlpool

in the heart of the whirlpool

The exhibition “In The Heart of The Whirlpool” features new work by Italian artist Pietro Bardini, and British artist Tice Cin, exploring a contemporary interpretation of the ideas behind the related British movement of Vorticism and Italian Futurism. The artists have created an immersive installation in the centre of the Borough Road Gallery space based on Wyndham Lewis’ idea that on the threshold of Vorticism:

You think at once of a whirlpool. At the heart of the whirlpool is a great silent place where all the energy is concentrated.

Bardini and Cin’s structure houses sound and poetry that feels like the true centre for a machine’s energy. Surrounding this installation will be projections from a new ‘Vorticist Manifesto’.

Join us for a performance following the narrative of the new Vorticist Manifesto on Friday, March 6th at 18:30 PM.

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Nov
23
1:30 PM13:30
Workshop, Talk, Exhibitions

POSE! Making and Taking Portraits

  • A free afternoon of drawings and exploring portraits at Borough Road Gallery

  • Live drawing sessions with local artist

  • CuratorTalks on portraiture and identity

  • Art-inspired selfie booth

Borough Road Gallery is hosting a drop-in, free to attend art session inspired by the gallery’s collection of modern art, taking place in the gallery on Saturday 23 November.

The event will explore ideas around portraiture and identity, through an afternoon of live drawing and curator talks, an art-inspired selfie station and the chance to explore the gallery’s permanent collection of paintings and drawings.

Artist Jenny Bell will run a series of interactive drawing activities asking us to rethink how we capture movement on the page - visitors will take turns modelling and drawing in charcoal to explore the many different ways the human form can be interpreted.

Borough Road Gallery curator Theresa Kneppers will give short talks on artists representing the body, looking in-depth at two particular artworks by prominent female figures of the Borough Group, a Modern British art collective artists that formed at the Borough Polytechnic (now London South Bank University) including Dorothy Mead and Edna Mann.

This event is programmed by the Kids in Museums Youth Panel in association with the Borough Road Gallery.

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Nov
22
12:00 PM12:00
Workshop

Female Modern British Artist Wikipedia Editathon

Help us improve the profiles of underrepresented Women Modern British Artists on Wikipedia. Join us at Borough Gallery on November 22nd from 12 - 3 PM to help add to the biographies of female Modern British artists and learn a new skill of creating and editing articles.

Wikipedia has 20 billion page views a month and while it's an important resource it is an incomplete resource and some topics including the profiles of female Modern British Artists need more research and visibility. You can combat gender content bias online by adding to this visible source.

This is a free ticketed event and snacks and drinks will be provided on the day. You can register to participate here. Please bring your laptops or internet accessible devices to the afternoon session at Borough Road Gallery at London South Bank University. You can register your Wiki account ahead of the session here, a limited number of new accounts can be created on the day. We're looking forward to seeing you there!

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Breathing in the Borough Road Archive
Apr
11
to Apr 13
Audio Installation

Breathing in the Borough Road Archive

  • Borough Road Gallery (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Breathing in the Borough Road Archive takes its inspiration from the theory of “insufflation

appreciation.” The theory that, with the right guidance, what Walter Benjamin describes as the

“aura” of a painting can be physically inhaled into the viewers body. This insufflation allows the

viewer to slip into a transcendental state where by the full complexity of a work of art may be

revealed. If done properly the technique allows the viewer to appreciate, understand, and even

empathise with a work of art on a metabolic level. The lines, colours and textures within a

painting each exist in the atmosphere as particles that resonating at different frequencies just

beyond the surface of a painting. With the correct breathing technique and meditation these

microscopic resonances (that are emitted by a work of art) may enter the body through the

lungs. As the aura is inhaled into the body it travels down the windpipe, through the bronchial

tubes, and passes through the thin walls of the alveoli entering the bloodstream where it travels

up to the brain triggering accurate and profound synaptic responses.

The audio meditation will utilise this technique to analyze and consume the collection in the

Borough Road Archive. Twelve short 2-4 min. segments of audio will employ this art

appreciation technique to explore the specific works of art, the history of their production, and

the legacy of the collection

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What are we but meat?
Mar
8
6:30 PM18:30
Performance, Talk

What are we but meat?

“What are we but meat?” is an event exploring seven works by Dorothy Mead through a movement performance and following talk on March 8th 2019 from 6:30 PM-8:30 PM.

The title is derived from this perspective on Dorothy Mead written by Ruth Busby: click.
The idea explored in this perspective is based around the blurring of features in a self-portrait by Mead which is also present in several of Mead’s other paintings of human bodies and how this might be intentional to explore ideas of identity, representation, and gender.

This event follows in the tradition of last year’s event “Before the termination of a flight” in exploring specific art-forms through movement performance. “Before the termination of a flight” explored the WWI poetry of painter David Bomberg combining poetry, ambient soundscapes and movement performance.

“What are we but meat?” is inspired by these seven Dorothy Mead works in A David Bomberg Legacy – The Sarah Rose Collection: “Reclining Nude”, “Standing Female Figure”, “Transvestite”, “Reclining Figure(Resting Model)”, “Reclining Figure”, “Reclining Nude”, and “Acrobat”. These are available in our online collection: click.
These works are explored through a movement performance by Demsey Legrand and Mai Tassinari with an ambient sound piece created by London South Bank University Sound Design student Mattia Turchetti.

The performance will be followed by a talk where Dorothy Mead is the starting point.

Capacity is limited so RSVP by clicking below to ensure entry.

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Oct
31
to Nov 3

Archive: Re-imagining the Borough Road Collection

  • Borough Road Gallery (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Johanna Bolton's research images dissect and reorder the visual and thematic links between paintings in the collection. Her residency has focused on the different ways in which archives can be mapped and understood, culminating in her solo exhibition opening at The Borough Road Gallery on November 1st. Cut out, assembled and arranged according to direction, the process of categorising and re-archiving the lines gives a new room for these painterly moments to exist. Collectivised and cut from any pictorial context but their own presence, the lines still seems to me to be powerful memories of the artists at work; their commitment, decisions and physical presence.

This project began with a discussion with the curator, Theresa Kneppers, about the nature of art and archives. At the time I was working on a research residency at Kew Gardens Herbarium, and had become fascinated with how scientists record and understand the botanical world through taxonomy. The way the Herbarium’s specimens were arranged physically in space was rational, but seemed to some extent random. I came out of the residency with a strong curiosity about how and why humans arrange and categorise objects to create archives.

A David Bomberg Legacy - The Sarah Rose Collection is of course a very different kind of archive, but I was curious to see how these same ideas of categorisation could function to highlight similarities and contrasts between works of art and artists. Art archives are a difficult beast, as the very nature of art is that each work is unique. This collection is knitted together by the choices of the collector, a specific location (London South Bank University, or Borough Polytechnic as it was formally known), and a precise period of time (1946 - 1951), which saw the influence of David Bomberg’s teaching begin to take shape. 

I have spent my residency investigating and mapping the ordering principles that could be applied to this particular archive, first focusing on pictorial characteristics such as colour, shapes, mark making and subject matter. Through this process, I became interested in tracing human interactions between the paintings - the influence of the teacher, dynamics of rivalry and support within the group, and the shared experience of lingering trauma after the recent war.

The responses presented in the exhibition can be seen both as interpretations and appropriations of things found in the archive, and as somewhat surreal suggestions of new ways to view and categorise A David Bomberg Legacy -The Sarah Rose Collection. 

-Johanna Bolton

Johanna Bolton Borough Road Gallery
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Sep
8
2:00 PM14:00
Exhibition

Scott McCracken in conversation with Adam Hennessey

Join us Saturday afternoon for a conversation between artists Scott McCracken and Adam Hennessey. 

Scott McCracken is a painter living and working in London.  He studied at Edinburgh College of Art from 2005 to 2011 where he received his BA and MFA in Painting.  He was a participant on the Turps Studio Programme in London from 2015 to 2017.  His work has been exhibited throughout the UK including solo exhibitions at Darbyshire Ltd, London and Bargain Spot Project Space, Edinburgh. Previous group shows include Standard Projects, Wisconsin, USA; Art Bermondsey Project Space, London; Universität der Künste Berlin, Berlin; ArtWall, Athens; Blankspace, Manchester.  In 2017 he was awarded the Darbyshire Prize for Emerging Art.

Adam Hennessey finished a one year course at Turps Banana Painting programme in 2015 and won the Darbyshire prize for emerging Art. He has been selected for the Creekside Open, Oriel Davies Open, ING Discerning Eye and most recently Beep Painting Biennial in Swansea. He is represented by New Art Projects and has had a painting added to the Groucho collection. 

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Sidesplit - Scott McCracken
Sep
6
to Sep 8
Exhibition

Sidesplit - Scott McCracken

  • Borough Road Gallery (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Scott McCracken's paintings are an index of geometric shapes and forms invented through a process of accumulation, recycling and reconfiguration.  A recurring form adopts a different identity from one painting to the next, affording each work its own singular logic and personality, both in terms of organisation of pictorial space and application of paint.  By using the same format and size of support, a seriality is created within the work. An individual painting is concurrently autonomous and dependent on the wider community of paintings it belongs to.  Although rooted in the language of abstraction, an animated quality extends throughout the work.

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Drawing Demands Freedom!
Aug
31
6:30 PM18:30

Drawing Demands Freedom!

An evening of life drawing with artist Tom Davies at the Borough Road Gallery

“The principle of the teaching should be to point out – if such can be the case – the inadequate representation of the forms; not to alter the artist’s drawing, but to encourage the artist to feel more deeply or more generously about it, the most effective way of demonstrating this is through the medium of the Teacher’s own draughtsmanship.”

-David Bomberg, ‘Syllabus’, May 22nd 1937 

An evening dedicated to the teaching of art (and the art of teaching), this event commemorates the life drawing classes of David Bomberg at the Borough Polytechnic and considers their place in the history of the modern British art school. Tom Davies has taught at both the Slade and The Prince’s Drawing School since 1975 and was himself a student of Bomberg’s disciples. Tom will share his personal experience of studying and working within the London art world and reflect upon the principles which Bomberg sought to realise through his classes. Following this introduction Tom will teach a life-drawing class, encouraging participants to make bold decisions in their work. The evening will conclude with a display of these pictures in the gallery in the collective spirit of the Borough Road Group.

£5 per person covering:

-       drawing materials

-       Tom Davies’s lecture and teaching (2hrs)

-       cost of life model

Space is limited. To reserve your place please email us at boroughroadgallery@gmail.com

Tom Davies Life Drawing Class Borough Road Gallery.jpg
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And I Paused
Aug
23
to Aug 24
Exhibition

And I Paused

  • Borough Road Gallery (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Caught somewhere between states, between lines of text and solid line of ink, these images are neither decorative art nor prose. I am instead creating a physical pause within the process of a photocopy by moving the image with the laser. Very broadly, as a neurodiverse thinker who likes to experiment with generating patterns for print these copies/collages seek to destroy the system of the dictionary. The dictionary is a familiar representation of words, language and communication. Some neurodiverse thinkers have trouble grasping these components and so create their own alternative versions in order to communicate effectively. The flexibility of language is being celebrated here, alongside a critique of the complex rules that govern even the smallest of interactions. 

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Before the termination of a flight
May
10
5:00 PM17:00
Performance

Before the termination of a flight

  • Studio Theatre at Morley College (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS
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British artist David Bomberg was a soldier during the First World War. Deprived of access to his primary art-form, painting, he took to writing poetry about his experiences in the trenches. He still drew scenes from his life as a soldier, but these are distinctly different from his poetry and do not show the horrors of the war.

To mark the centennial of the end of the war, this performance explores three of Bomberg’s poems from the war and examines how different art-forms can express different emotions and experiences. The performance will consist of three sound pieces mixing electronic music and ambient soundscapes with Bomberg’s poetry and three correlating movement performances, all created by current LSBU students.

Space is limited please RSVP here. 

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Bomberg: Motion & Music
Nov
30
7:00 PM19:00
Performance

Bomberg: Motion & Music

Bomberg: Motion & Music is an immersive performance combining music and animated imagery inspired by David Bomberg. Artist, Oscar Lewis, has produced a series of animations in response to the distinct phases in Bomberg’s career. Working in collaboration with chamber musicians, Three Parts Vied, the performance will highlight Bomberg's creativity and influence on future generations of artists.

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An Elephant Walk with Isobel Durrant
Nov
25
11:00 AM11:00
Walk

An Elephant Walk with Isobel Durrant

Once hailed as south London's answer to Bath, the Elephant and Castle's reputation has for many years been more ugly duckling than admired swan. Named after a pub, and famous for music halls, Europe's biggest cinema, and a gang that modelled itself on Chicago's violent criminals, it was less well-known for being home to an important group of artists that included Leon Kossoff and Frank Auerbach.  The Elephant reinvented itself more recently as a music and night club venue; hip in parts, but not where most people wanted to live; a grimy and gritty place, somewhere only its locals could love. Then  along came regeneration, and suddenly unfamiliar words like investment, opportunity, desirable started to be used about the neighbourhood. 

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