Millenial Muse Blues

MILLLENIAL MUSE BLUES

Forthcoming solo show of work by Bridget Heriz
29th October - 19th November 2016

Merchant House Gallery
102 High Street, Lowestoft, Suffolk NR32 1XW
www.merchanthousegallery.co.uk

Thurs-Sat 11am - 4pm, Tue-Wed by appointment

River Waveney Sculpture Trail

Cerridwen, or Metamorphosis, bronze, 36x13x12", 1990

This early sculpture of mine is being shown at the River Waveney Sculpture Trail at the River Waveney Study Centre (former Otter Trust), Old Harleston Road, Earsham, Bungay, NR35 2AF,

an idyllic setting for a sculpture trail, with lovely, peaceful walks along  waterways and wild flower meadows.  Curated by Dulcie Humphreys of the Fairhurst Gallery, Norwich, the trail has an interesting selection of work and is definitely worth a visit.  It is open until the 4th September 2016, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holiday Monday, 10 am - 4 pm.

Waveney and Blyth Arts are offering a variety of events, including workshops, an audio-described walk, family fund day and a late night opening with barbecue.  See www.waveneyandblytharts.com.

5th Anniversary of War in Syria

The Market Place, watercolour, 2016
















Today is the 5th Anniversary of war in Syria, with nearly half a million dead and millions of people displaced, whole communities devastated and cultural heritage destroyed.  How can this monstrous atrocity be countenanced?

Migration of a people, watercolour, 2016

The Double

I have just finished reading Fyodor Dostoyevksy's surreal and sinister story "The Double", first published in 1846, this translation by Ronald Wilks, 2009.  I've read so much recently that was written in the 19th Century and seems totally pertinent to contemporary life.

Poor Mr. Golyadkin is trying to talk to his Civil Service employer, Anton Antonovich, regarding his anxieties about Mr. Golyadkin's double who has appeared in the workplace, an operator who knows how to insinuate himself with everybody to advance his interests.  

"I'm only developing the theory, putting forward the idea, Anton Antonovich, that people who wear masks aren't at all rare now and that nowadays it's hard to recognize the man beneath the mask".

"Well, you know, it's not so hard.  Sometimes it's even fairly easy, sometimes you don't have to look very hard...."

"No....I'm talking of myself, Anton Antonovish, I'm talking of myself, for example: when I say that I wear a mask, it's only when I need to; that is, only for carnivals or festive gatherings, speaking literally.  But I don't wear one every day in front of people, speaking in a different and more cryptic sense.  That's what I wanted to say, Anton Antonovich."

Golyadkin falls apart within a society where he feels he can trust no-one and is finally undone by his clever, dissembling double.  I think this ambiguous and disturbing text is a little masterpiece by Dostoyevky,

Masked in the City, watercolour, 2013

Audrey Pilkington (1922-2015)

A celebratory exhibition of my mother's art.
Audrey Pilkington (1922-2015)
Skippings Gallery, 133 King Street, Great Yarmouth
9th April - 7th May 2016
Wednesday - Saturdays 11am - 4pm

Hell on Earth

The Dead are in Peace, it is the Survivors who live in Hell, watercolour, 2015

Patrick Cockburn reported on 23rd October in London Review of Books, 5 Nov 2015 issue:

"According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 250,124 Syrians have been killed and an estimated two million injured out of a population of 22 million.  The country is saturated by violence."

Today the parliament in London has voted to take military action in Syria.  Russia, France, USA, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Assad, the Kurds, Shia, Sunni, Israel, Palestine, etc etc etc., oil, coloniasm, arms sales, sadistic misogyny, greed, terror tactics, lies, evasions, propaganda - a different agenda for each party engaged, a whirlpool of confusion into which humanity is being hurled: for the civilians, blood and horror.

War Diary

I have been keeping a visual war diary for several years now, filling sketch books with watercolour or ink and wash drawings in response to the endlessly devastating news on television in the evenings.

It gets ever more impossible to respond in any way that remotely reflects the ruined lives of survivors from the increasing number of war zones, let alone the millions who have died.  But I feel I need to pay some sort of homage to the women and their families who have seen their homes and communities destroyed, and the injustice of modern warfare which brings so much suffering to non-combatants.

My homage does not pretend to express anything of the terrible reality on the ground, it can only be an outlet for my own grief at the indifferent brutality of man. My own soul wishes to flee from the horror of it all.  But there is nowhere to go: the world is a small place now and doesn't everything that happens on earth implicate us all everywhere?

There are more drawings on my website www.bridgetheriz.co.uk