Nomadic Resonance

Thursday 5th May - Saturday 11th June 2022

Join our artist educator in the gallery for an exciting workshop examining the collection of October Gallery artists who make up the exhibition Nomadic Resonance. The exhibition explores the idea of a 'nomad' or wanderer. The art workshops will focus on exploring diverse ways of making such as textiles, assembling found materials, and calligraphy, and we will create our own work in the gallery inspired by the exhibition.

Nomadic Resonance celebrates the launch of Anthony Sattin’s latest book, Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World, by highlighting the broad ranging diversity of work by such artists as El Anatsui, Brion Gysin, Romuald Hazoumè, Rachid Koraïchi, Alexis Peskine, Sylvie Franquet, LR Vandyand Carol Beckwith & Angela Fisher.

The exhilarating works included in the show will feature: a new, large-scale work by El Anatsui, who first coined the term ‘nomadic aesthetic’ to indicate the breadth of topological freedoms exhibited by his bottle cap sculptures; examples of scriptorial abstractions by Brion Gysin, which - situated somewhere between Japanese and Arabic calligraphic glyphs – still somehow manage to map the extraordinary freedom of spirit practised by this legendary artist; three, poignant, large vases, from the Lachrymatoires Bleues series, created by Rachid Koraïchi under intense ‘lockdown’ conditions during the pandemic in Barcelona, in 2020; and iconic ‘masks’ made by Romuald Hazoumè from recuperated objects. It was Hazoumè who explained how Yoruba tradition demanded that each aré - or true artist - must travel around and settle amongst other peoples, creating for and learning from them - before again moving on. Each of the ‘itinerant’ artists selected strikes unique resonances from the nomadic aesthetic that Anthony Sattin weaves so eloquently into the pages of his remarkable, new book.

image above: Romuald Hazoumè, Mariama, 2019. Plastic, fabric and copper, 41 x 37.5 x 18.5cm.

Alexis Peskine, Moona Sista, 2021. Copper leaf coated nails, Arno riverearth, natural red pigment, clay and acrylic on wood, 170 x 8 x 160 cm.

Brion Gysin, Feast of the Drums, II,2; Achour Marrakesh, 1966. Watercolour on paper, 25 x 32 cm.