25 May  – 5 July 2019

Sheila Godbolt is an artist and designer who has worked on theatrical productions in many locations over a long career.  Along with her partner,  Alasdair Burman,  she hopes to produce something memorable for the Gallery. Sheila writes:

“Now retired from the physical theatre, I have built a scale model for an imaginary theatre. The play is  ‘Endgame’ by Samuel Beckett. The design process,  reading the play,  thinking,  drawing,  has always been a great pleasure for me,  so this project has been a way of recapturing that pleasure.

“I chose  ‘Endgame’  because,  apart from  ‘Waiting for Godot’  I have never designed one of Beckett’s plays, although his work is very familiar to me.  I love his dark humour, his eccentric characters,  the nihilism which is somehow full of energy and optimism.

“There is only one set in  ‘Endgame’  and not a lot happens,  things just take their course.  Beckett wrote the play in French and it was performed on 1 April 1957 at the Royal Court Theatre,  directed by Roger Blin with a French cast.  It was subsequently performed the next month in Paris at the Studio des Champs Élysées.   Beckett translated it himself for the first English production at the Royal Court  in the early 60s.The opening lines set the scene:

Bare interior.

Grey light.

Left and right back,  high up,  two small windows,  curtains drawn.  (These are drawn back and then closed again several times in the play.)

Front right,  a door.

Hanging near the door,  its face to the wall,  a picture.

Front left,  touching each other,  covered with an old sheet,  two ash bins.

Centre,  in an armchair on castors,  covered with an old sheet,  Hamm.

Motionless by the door,  his eyes fixed on Hamm,  Clov. Very red face.

Brief tableau.

“When it was suggested that I might make an installation in the Gallery,  I was both intimidated and exhilarated.  I hope that what Alasdair and I have put together will interest and amuse. What it all means I really cannot say.”

 

 7 September – 8 November 2019

Peter Osborne first learnt to paint and draw as a boy with the bird artist Rowland Green.  After two degrees, the second in Art History at the Courtauld Institute, he worked in art schools eventually becoming Head of the Blackburn School of Art and Design.  He is moved by the sad sight of fine old barns sinking into decay; this exhibition of watercolours is a result.