Menier Gallery Exhibition

'HIDDEN MESSAGES'

ANITA FORD - ALFRED HUCKETT 

Only two weeks to our preview which you are invited to attend

Tueday 24th October 6pm - 8pm       

Menier Gallery

NOTES ON FORTHCOMING EXHIBITION 24th OCT - 3rd NOV - MENIER GALLERY LONDON SE1

I must admit that the link between my transvestism, and the art to be shown in this  forthcoming exhibition is a questionable one, but then to take any literal idea and interpret it into a visual one is ultimately an impossible task. However it seems that this form of challenge attracts me, as in my previous music paintings I attempted to transform sound into brush and pen marks. Then again art is about the impossible, as in placing heaven and the angels just above your head in a Renaissance fresco or in more modern times turning the handlebars and saddle of a bike into the head of a bull. So how to go about this? I do feel that if you saturate your mind with some strong ideas and feelings then ultimately these can filter through into your work. The Ideas that I have used in these pieces are not necessarily specifically transvestite but general ones, the aspects of wearing, experiencing and revelling in clothes and in the various qualities that they possess such as concealment, transformation, and power. 

In 1996. I had worked for some years on watercolours from the nude figure, and wanted to embark on some different work. I had an idea which was to clothe my nudes, but also a desire to express my transvestism in some way, which was the most prominent thought, I cannot recall. I executed watercolours and collages but  tucked them away in a plans chest. These now constitute the smaller work in this exhibition. This year, 2017, I completed seven large canvases adding contrast and more weight to my share of the show. They are what I would describe as textile collages and spring from the earlier ‘Choice’ and Autograph’ pictures. The starting point of each was a dress form sewn or/and adhered to the surface. 

I share the exhibition with Anita Ford whose recent work with it’s figurative self analysis explores  issues of deafness and cancer. Here too is revealed a world of mystery and isolation and reflects a similar investigation my search to understand and come to terms with my TV.

'We all have secrets. Sometimes these get accidentally exposed, but not always in an obvious way. Acceptance and confrontation in wrestling our demons enables us to reason and finally come to terms with our existence and mortality’. 

                                   Composite Image of work to be shown by Alfred Huckett and Anita Ford

Forthcoming Exhibition Menier Gallery

In 1996 I spent a short break in the Cotswolds. Away from my studio there was an opportunity to develop a new series of paintings which I called Vestments. It was born out of a desire to express a part of myself, which, with the exclusion of my closest friends was hidden, my transvestism. This body of work has since sat in a plan chest waiting for its moment to be revealed.

With the forthcoming exhibition in October at the Menier Gallery

http://www.meniergallery.co.uk/. which I will be sharing with Anita Ford

http://www.anitaford-art.co.uk , I have the opportunity to display these previously unseen paintings and collages.

To augment the 1996 paintings I am currently working on larger canvases in mixed media. As a transvestite my first interest is in the garments, but I also seek to encompass the wider issues of dress. Aspects such as concealment, isolation, transformation, are some of the many ways in which garments can effect the substance and identity of a person.

VESTED INTERESTS

I will be showing two of my music paintings in a group show ‘Making A Mark’ at The Courtyard Gallery, Port Vale Hertford, from 6th June to the1st July, but aside from this I will be leaving the subject of music for a while to return to a previously neglected area of my work - vestments. This is to prepare for a joint exhibition with Anita Ford http://www.anitaford-art.co.uk  at the Menier Gallery, 51 Southwark Street London SE1 1RU to run from the evening of 24th October to 3rd November http://www.meniergallery.co.uk/. I am currently working on seven multi media canvases based on a series of collaged maquettes which I plan to feature on one of the large walls. The kernel of the exhibition however is a series of small pictures made back in 1996. It was the first time that I had attempted to express my transvestism in my art, and now in later life it’s time to expose and so defuse this aspect of myself and to develop this aspect of my work which has been neglected for too long.  

April 2017