#ArtThursdays

Tilla Crowne - Official Memories @ Thames-Side Studios 'Lounge Gallery'

10 JUNE - 19 AUGUST 2022

Back at Thameside Studios again - for this week's #ArtThursday feature, we were taken on a trip in the Official Memories exhibition. Explored through an array of commercially produced tourist slides, Tilla Crowne's Official Memories serves to encourage us to think about how much of a trip or a holiday we take away with us - how much we remember versus how much and what we should actually remember.

Tilla Crowne is a contemporary artist whose work is primarily centred around drawing and instillation. She describes her work as largely autobiographical; primarily preoccupied with "themes of identity, memory, sexual violence, and the body".

Crowne was born in Stoke Newington and now currently works, and is based, in London.

Hawaii sequence 2022

Crafted to serve as a stark reminder of the aspects of a trip or holiday one might have forgotten or left behind, 'Official Memories' is an exhibition with a series of slides presented in various ways.

 Staying true to it's titular theme of memories, the work evokes contemplation - specifically regarding just how much of our memories are also obscured - like each of the tourist slides. Why is it we only remember certain aspects of a trip? What are the aspects we find ourselves remembering the most? And what are the aspects we often end up forgetting? Perhaps there is a pattern; perhaps there is also a reason.

Crowne's work often features the recurring use of biological materials such as broken eggshells and living matter – plants, insects, fungus – as media, either drawing directly onto them or using them to transform objects and spaces. This is also evident in this, her most recent exhibition, which uses similar methods to explores topics such as truth and reality.

Grand Canyon Butterfly boxes 2017

"These official memories are coloured and changed by the bodies superimposed on them"

 

Grand Canyon Butterfly Slides 2020

"Engaging with majestic views and proud vistas the butterflies of Grand Canyon Butterfly Slides are stark and bright against the flat slides"

Apollo Moon Landing Sequence, 2020

"Partly obscuring the official images, the butterfly wings becoming part of the projection, light streaming through the wings and imposing their pattern upon the image."
 

The exhibit was thought-provoking, beautifully presented and oddly nostalgic.

We would recommend this exhibition to anyone with a hankering for contemplative art. Check it out before it closes late August!