Rachel Gadsden –
What this Storm is All About
The sea and sailing is ever present in artist Rachel Gadsden’s life, and inspired by significant historical and contemporary migrations passages, including the 1620 Mayflower voyage to the new World, the 1816 Medusa voyage to Senegal, and the recent diaspora journeys refugees have, and are still taking to escape war and conflict, Gadsden is exploring sea journeys as a catalyst to create a multimedia exhibition of artworks and a digital performance for early 2021.
Inspired by a long history of artists exploring similar subjects, Gadsden is taking inspiration from French Romantic artist Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa painting, Russian artist Ivan Aviavosky’s significant seascape paintings and Cy Twombly’s Lepanto Cycle (Venice Biennale 2001) for this project, Gadsden hopes to capture and record, through art, migration narratives, both the traumatic and celebratory experiences, and the ultimate sense of empowerment and hope that has emerged from historical and contemporary universal displacement and migration to create a more culturally diverse global society.
Richard Howard wrote in the exhibition catalogue for Cy Tombly’s Lepanto Series:
“As grim and sometimes uproarious as the art panels are, their cumulative effect, as we move among them, to take in the whole sequence as a single image, is one of luminous intensity. We witness historical evidence through a personal meditation on tragedy. Certainly, Lepanto is an accounting, but not a final summing up. We are still, with Twombly in the thick of the fight”.
Online Exhibition
Rachel Gadsden – Beam Reach to the Sea
Pencil, Conte, Sepia Wash on paper
Rachel Gadsden – Embarkation
Gouache and Charcoal on paper
Rachel Gadsden – Departure
Gouache and Charcoal on paper
Rachel Gadsden – Waiting for the tide
Gouache and Charcoal on paper
Rachel Gadsden – Waiting for the tide (detail)
Gouache and Charcoal on paper
Rachel Gadsden – Lost at Sea
Gouache and Charcoal on paper
Rachel Gadsden – Lost at Sea (detail)
Gouache and Charcoal on paper
Rachel Gadsden – Lost at Sea (detail)
Gouache and Charcoal on paper
Rachel Gadsden – The Roar of the Sea
Gouache and Charcoal on paper
Rachel Gadsden – Adrift in a storm
Gouache and Charcoal on paper
Rachel Gadsden – All at Sea
Gouache and Charcoal on paper
Rachel Gadsden – Abandoned at Sea
Gouache and Charcoal on paper
Rachel Gadsden – In the Light of the Full Moon
Gouache and Charcoal on paper
Rachel Gadsden – In the Light of the Full Moon (detail)
Gouache and Charcoal on paper
Rachel Gadsden – In the Light of the Full Moon (detail)
Gouache and Charcoal on paper
Rachel Gadsden – In the Light of the Full Moon (detail)
Gouache and Charcoal on paper
Rachel Gadsden – The Furies of the Sea
Gouache and Charcoal on Paper
Rachel Gadsden – Journey to the New World
Gouache and Charcoal on Paper with digital edit
Rachel Gadsden – Mother and Child
Gouache and Charcoal on Paper
Rachel Gadsden – Refugee Women
Gouache and Charcoal on Paper
Rachel Gadsden – Migration Isolation I
Gouache and Charcoal on Paper
Rachel Gadsden – Migration Isolation II
Gouache and Charcoal on Paper
Rachel Gadsden – Migration Isolation III
Gouache and Charcoal on Paper
Rachel Gadsden – In the shadows of the Mayflower
Pencil on paper with digital edit
Rachel Gadsden – Pilgrims I (detail)
Pencil on paper
Rachel Gadsden – Pilgrims I
Pencil on paper
Rachel Gadsden – Pilgrims II
Gouache Charcoal and Conte on Paper
Rachel Gadsden – Deluge
Gouache Charcoal and Conte on Paper
Rachel Gadsden – Deluge (detail)
Gouache Charcoal and Conte on Paper
