The free exhibition opens today in Winns Gallery in Lloyd Park
By Nadoya Reid

The four artists last exhibited together in 2018 (credit: Kate Tsang)

Four women artists from Walthamstow have reunited for a free exhibition of work that “expresses their reality and experiences”.

Artists Anna Alcock, Linda Green, Yaniré Sylva Delgado and Kirsten Schmidt last exhibited together in 2018 and are showcasing a series of prints, paintings and sculptures.

Through their work, the artists invite viewers to “contemplate an imagined world, to acknowledge the depth of feminine wisdom, and to reflect on the fragility and preciousness of nature”.

Kirsten will be displaying sculptures which draw inspiration from “strange anthropological objects and the stories they tell”. She hopes that in the distant future, someone will look at her sculptures as “curious artefacts” and “wonder who made them and what they mean”.

(Credit: Yaniré Sylva Delgado)

Yaniré’s sculptures, meanwhile, are a monument to the trying times of the pandemic, with their bodies acting as “testimony to the sadness produced by fear, death and lack of human contact”.

She told the Echo: “During the pandemic, people were not able to touch or embrace. This is why my sculptures have no arms or mouths and stand grounded on their duckling-like feet”.

However, she said the colourfulness of her pieces reflects “resilience” and her belief in “the human capacity to endure, adapt and survive”, adding: “They reflect both the darkness and light of life, the spirit which links us all with nature helping us to survive”.

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Anna’s work continues to highlight the “preciousness of nature” as it follows her through her journey of learning about and raising awareness of the decline of pollinators. The origin of her journey began in 2019, following a series of visits to the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity in the National History Museum.

(Credit: Anna Alcock)

At the centre, Anna sketched bumblebees, hoverflies, and beetles, which became the starting point of her art pieces. Anna described the ‘Ghost of Bees’ series to the Echo as featuring “a dead insect in a petri dish with 24 carat gold leaf to convey the delicacy and fragility of our pollinators, and the precious nature of their existence”.

Linda’s work is heavily inspired by T. S. Elliot’s ‘Four Quartets’. She shares that the poem “speaks to her fascination with layers of time, memory, and meaning, and also with her concerns about the climate emergency”.

Despite the poem being 80 years old, for Linda, there are aspects of the ‘Four Quartets’ that are “relevant to contemporary life”.

She said: “There is a darkness in the quartets, with themes of alienation, mortality and regeneration, which perhaps speak to the dark times we continue to experience.”

‘A Return to Aquelarre’ at Walthamstow’s Winns Gallery opens from 13th to 21st August, from 12-5pm during the week and 10-5pm on weekends.

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