‘Marking Injustice’ – A Painters Way of Coping, 2015

In 2015 I received a grant from Arts Council England for this seven-week show at Bridport Arts Centre. Called ‘Marking Injustice’: A Painter’s Way of Coping it was a collaboration with the artist Heather Fallows and the filmmaker Robert Golden, whose new film about myself and my work was premiered at Bridport Arts Centre on Tuesday, May 5. To view the film re-appearances click on the News tab and scroll down.

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In this file photographs and Images from the exhibition ‘Marking Injustice’-A Painters Way of Coping, Running  from 17th April until 30th May 2015 at Bridport Arts Centre. www.bridport-arts.com Images are from the hanging, private View and at various times through out the exhibition. Photographs from the hanging by Robert Golden.

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Photographs from the Private View by Robert Golden.

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Photographs of exhibition space and Heather Fallows work by Robert Golden

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From my mobile

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Images from the workshop on 15th may. work from students and teachers from the Sir John Colfox Academy School.(15-05-2015)

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More Images from Fridays workshop photographer David Powell.(15-05-2015)

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Painter John Hubberd with the type writer.

Photograph of the panel from Saturdays (16-5-2015) discussion at the Allsop gallery. The eminent panel are from left to right Richard Harvey human rights barrister, Sarah Burton Campaigns Director of Greenpeace, Carla Ferstman Director of Redress, and Samantha Knights KC. human rights barrister

© Justin Owen 2015 Searching for Justice at BAC
© Justin Owen 2015
Searching for Justice at BAC

Last evening of ‘Marking Injustice’ Sitar and tabla performance to celebrate the end of a the exhibition, myself on sitar and Jon Leadbeater on tabla. Photographs Robert Golden

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Marking Injustice: A Painter’s Way of Coping

18 April – 30 May

By Amy Van Zyl (Aged 18)

Somewhat unsurprisingly, to feel the beating pulse of the world is both a blessing and a curse. This is perhaps the struggle that Ricky Romain’s paintings embody so poignantly, so beautifully. They contain, within the frenzied mark making and the depth of tone in the absence of colour, an exorbitant sense of loss, an incandescent grief. And yet we see faces, human faces, clutching at negative-images of loved ones; the lost voices. A world of “shadow men” which Ricky cannot forget and so he paints them, to render their lost abstraction tangible and to be shared. In this he is able to demonstrate an enormous sense of hope. His art; the shared acknowledgement of human existence, the extending of a hand to say that he too feels what it is to be. And so in the white-clad gallery room in the Art Centre’s Allsop Gallery, you can feel this human connection emanating from the luminous figures whose consciousness of their own mortality seems to live and breathe in their stark white frames; so that you cannot look away.

“Shadow men”; Heather’s words. Her work which too inhabits the Gallery, manages to beautifully draw out the essence of the exhibition’s humanity. She demonstrates a stunning capacity for translation of this poignantly sensory concept into intricate and beautiful sculptures, books and textiles. A very physically lyrical medium which so lovingly ensures the safe passage, the message’s translation.

Ricky and Heather achieve what few artists do, they manage to remove the audiences’ self-assertions so that the human soul can seamlessly access another. Often, under the harsh artificial light of a gallery, the beautiful art is rendered so that you merely see a reflection of yourself staring blankly back, expectantly. Literally and figuratively. And so, you smile back at it in the bizarre irony of being, in that moment, entirely blinded by one’s own inbuilt sense of self. In a room where this seems absent, where Ricky’s art has stripped away superficially complex forms and bleached away colour, in the moment, in the reflection of light to the retina and the unscrambling of reflected particles, only the human connection remains. So as to be no-longer entirely blinded by one’s own sense of self, Ricky has allowed that we might reach out to others, as mere humans, for just a moment.

email from Richard Harvey

Sarah and I sat down to watch Robert’s film the other night.

Absolutely stunning.  The visual images, Heather’s powerful poems, the radiance of Ricky’s face when the words inside him pour out, stretching the canvass, stretching the imagination, insights into the process of composition, the broad daubs and the minute scratching, the colourfulness of black and white, the young long-haired Ricky, the iter-reiter-rereiterations stutter-patter-splatter-scatter-scuttering of whirled words rewording themselves and the world of Ricky’n’Heather’n’Heather’n’Ricky reworlding itself in whorling brash-strokes and sculpting scalpel-scrapels.

In the beginning was the image on the wall of the cave.  Only later came the word and it called itself God because it was obsessed with defining and ruling and overruling.  But the image and the music and the dance refuse definition.  They offer us freedom if we dare.  They don’t fall down and worship; they rise up and rebel.

Thank you both

Richard J. Harvey Formerly Lead Counsel, ICTY Currently Consultant to Legal Unit Greenpeace International, Amsterdam Mobile Number: +31-627440943 Chair, Garden Court International Garden Court Chambers 57-60 Lincoln’s Inn Fields London WC2A 3LJ

2 Comments

  • Penelope Harrington says:

    Dear Ricky it was lovely to connect again with you on Fridays performance of Variations in Taunton. I loved the music – the musical conversation between you and Andrew and then the crescendo reached together with the guitar! I bought the CD on sale and all I can say is I found this music so comforting that I looked for a second in the sleeve, but alas only 1 was there!

    • RickyRomain says:

      Dear Pene, thank you so much for coming to the gig, It was good to see you after so many years. I am so touched my work is still meaningful for you. Thank you for buying the CD we are working on another one hopefully it will be ready sometime in 2024 but I think later than earlier in the year. I will keep you posted. Much Love Ricky

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