Severyn-Kosinska & Wheeler Takeover

February – April 2024

Severyn-Kosinska & Wheeler takeover presents 3 exhibitions:

Valizka: Feb 3 – March 3

A touring exhibition of installations & assemblages by four women artists; Louise Severyn Kosinska, Ruth Miemczyk, Sophie Epton-Mock and Monica Wheeler.

The Dark and the Light: March 6 – 31

Andrew Szczech and Violet Mareck

The work of painter Andrew Szczech and mixed media artist Violet Mareck has symmetry in acknowledging the environment in which we live. Both artists explore and respond to a disturbing emotional tug generated by the everyday traumas that we all hear, see and live through, a constant unknown hinterland at the periphery of all our minds.

What is Left: April 4 – 28

Caroline Penn & Heather Rigg

Curated by Kate Stoddart

Objects hold the past but continue to exist in the present.  In What is Left, Caroline Penn and Heather Rigg use artists books, films and paper installations to explore the histories behind familial objects. 

Private View: Thurs 11 April, 6 – 8pm
Workshop: Learn how to make an artist’s book, Sat 20 April, 2pm. Book HERE
Download pdf about workshop HERE.
Artists’ & curator’s talk: Sat 27 April, 2pm

About the Exhibitions:

Valizka

Valizka is a playful modification of the word and title of our exhibition Valizka, walizka, valise, suitcase.  The word, or rather the image, evokes a response from the personal to the universal, historical, political. Forced movements of people carry their lives in suitcases. Suitcase, simply as an object, can remind us of the excitement and anticipation of journeys taken. A little cream suitcase with a gold trim and a red scotch-plaid lining does just that. In complete contrast, once seen, those piles of brown suitcases in the vast display cabinets of  Auschwitz-Birkenau can only be associated with that….that place….that time.

The four women artists first met in Gorlice, Poland, when they were invited to participate in an International Artist Symposium, hosted by B.W.A., Galeria Dwor Karwacjanow. The impact of the meeting proved to be a catalyst for all four artists and they regularly return to Poland, taking part in artist residencies, as well as group and solo exhibitions.

The work presented at One Paved Court, represents their unique connection with Poland and with each other, as a group of artists working together. While similarities exist, especially in their poetic handling of materiality, their creative individuality is absolutely evident. Family histories and stories, real or imagined, changing borders, lost places and people, feminism, romanticism, a longing for things past, are some of the things hinted at.

Valizka makes it’s journey in suitcases from Szymbark Castle in Malopolska, Poland, where it was shown in August  2023, in the first venue of it’s tour. It will arrive at One Paved Court in February, 2024, contained within suitcases. It may stay confined, it may spill out, it may break free….

The Dark and the Light 

Responding to specific sites, ruined seminaries, disused farm buildings, unloved suburbs, and evoking broken utopias, Andrew Szczech finds peace and solace in his melancholic painting. Cracks sprawl across the works, like distorted modernist grids and broken flesh.  Through the exhibition, Violet Mareck’s assemblages, sculptures and installations weave between the paintings, echoing Szczech’s lost utopias. Informed by her subconscious and conscious reactions to current events and her own experiences, Violet’s  work focuses on memories and dreams embedded into our very being, how they inform our adult minds and the way we go on to live and how we treat others.

What is Left

Using conceal and reveal as a methodology, artists  Caroline Penn and Heather Rigg investigate ideas of the seen and unseen, historical pain and present-day reparation.  Interpreting objects as metaphors for multi layered emotions, they reveal the hidden complexities of family relationships, including the difficulties of loss.  Using print, stitch and thorns in their process-led practices, they create artists’ books, films and paper installations that are vehicles for memory and narrative.

Read about upcoming shows at One Paved Court HERE.