RWA Strange Worlds

The Vision of Angela Carter

 A major exhibition that celebrates the life, work and influences of Angela Carter twenty five years after her death.  In bringing together art and literature, Strange Worlds: The Vision of Angela Carter explores the enormous impact of author and journalist Angela Carter - one of the most distinctive literary voices of the last 100 years.  
Delving into the latent meanings of childhood fairytales and the twisted imagery of gothic mysticism, this exhibition pays homage to the dark and compelling drama of Carter’s visual imagination – brutal, surrealist and savage.

Strange Worlds: The Vision of Angela Carter is curated by Dr Marie Mulvey-Roberts of UWE, and the artist and writer Fiona Robinson RWA.

Here are a collection of inspirational images with explanations taken from the current RWA exhibition “Strange Worlds” inspired by the novels of Angela Carter. I selected the following pieces as I found them both beautiful and resonant within my own print work (See Leda and the Swan). I captured sections of oil portraits and exquisite pattern. Examples include: William Holman Hunt’s ‘Shadow of Death’, Heather Nevey’s evocative, haunting female portraits taken from ‘the Lesson’, the projection of ‘Ophelia’ by Davy and Kristin McGuire and the sinister, tortuous installation ‘the Banquet’ by Ana Maria Pacheco. I have re-used descriptive captions taken directly from the gallery to inform the reader.

I read Angela Carter’s novel 'Night at the Circus' which illustrated the ill-fated, sleazy underbelly of carnival life where true love can conquer all when I was teenager and warmed to the glitzy character 'Fevvers'.  Sophie 'Fevvers' the Cockney virgin acrobat with her own set of wings made glamorous the tawdry life of an orphaned child, supposedly hatched from an egg and abandoned on the doorstep of a brothel. Darkness, tigers, alcoholism and death issued from this modern day fairytale with no prince but the love of a journalist, Jack Walser, to save her in the end.

Not Walt Disney I grant you, but all children dream of being rescued from their own 'reality' sometime, and who wouldn't want to fly on their own pair of super wings? Ambiguous, uncomfortable and at times alien, but a reality which echoes within most childhood memories.

Heather Nevey taken from 'the Lesson' and 'The Bed' (Oil on Canvas)

Ana Maria Pacheco - The Banquet (Polychromed Wood)

Some Exercise of power, Ana Maria Pacheco’s three part sculptural installation, including here, The Banquet, was made between 1980 and 1985. Felled by Pacheco’s deep concern for her fellow human beings, it addresses, through metaphor the universal theme of man’s inhumanity to man, offering a bleak vision of the uncertainty of the human condition. The figures in the banquet are larger than life, heads sunk into shoulders, taut skin stretched to its limit, prosthetic human teeth adding to the sense of threat The naked figure is utterly vulnerable powerless in the face of forces beyond his control. Is this performance or are we witnessing torture?

Karl Weschke - Leda and the Swan (Oil on Canvas) 1985-86

In this portrayal of the legend of Leda and the Swan, Weschke reverses the traditional casting of Leda as the victim. Instead she is portrayed as a powerful sexual figure. Here, Leda dominates the landscape, towering above the delicate swan (a demi-god). The same legend is evoked in Carter’s novel, ' The Magic Toyshop', where the heroine is coerced by her sadistic uncle – a toymaker - to re-enact the rape of Leda with a swan puppet whilst he pulls the strings.

William Holman Hunt - The Shadow of Death (Oil and Varnish on canvas) 1869-73

This work features a young Jesus in a carpenter’s workshop. Portrayed with arms aloft, his shadow falls in the shape of the crucifix on the wooden tool rack behind. The arch of the window in the background creates the illusion of a halo and the ring of yarn by his feet is suggestive of a bloodied crown of thorns. It was painted during a visit to the Holy Land and is often compared with John Everett Millais’ Christ in the House of his Parents, which is also set in ta carpenter’s workshop. The work appeared in Carter’s film, The Holy Family Album, depicting key stages in Christ’s life.

Ophelia - Davy and Kristin McGuire (Holographic projection)

This installation creates a haunting reminder of John Everett Millais’ iconic Pre-Raphaelite painting of Ophelia (1851-52). Carter was an admirer of this work, which haunts her novel Love. Here, instead of a canvas, the surface of a bottle is used, upon which the artist’s portrait of Shakespeare’s’ doomed heroine is submerged. The McGuire’ work, which includes the realm of fairies and the gothic, resonates with Carter’s engagement with Magic Realism, fantasy and the surreal.