Always Winter

“It is she that makes it always winter, always winter and never Christmas.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

As we finally approach the end of this beleaguered year and we search for ways to make sense of it, C. S. Lewis’ story of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe comes to mind. His tale of stepping, in a waking moment, from a life you know and understand into something alien, uncomfortable and restricted. Having to try and understand the social and societal rules of this new world as you fumble your way through it. A world trapped in an endless winter that drives people indoors, isolated, and suffocates hope and happiness.

“If you've been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you – you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing was ever going to happen again.”

Of course though, it is not hopeless, and winter is not without beauty. This year has brought gifts too. A stillness that has allowed many people to rediscover the natural world, appreciate our place within it and our impact upon it. Time to step outside of the fast-flowing stream of our lives and look at where we are going and where we have been.

Always Winter brings together six artists who – through their subject matter, tone, or material approach – express something of the journey of C. S Lewis’s story and in turn, this year. 

Sam Carvosso’s wall painting 'Forest Findings' sets our stage. Denied its verdant nature and instead rendered in a cold monochrome, the forest scene wraps around the Viewing Room, surrounding us, never breaking or showing a path through. Carvosso has populated this winter landscape with 3D-printed likenesses of woodland creatures, plucked out of time and frozen. Relief is offered as the trees part in front of us, revealing the sky and a glimmer of hope on the horizon beyond. 

The otherworldly mysticism of Natalia Gonzalez Martin’s paintings evokes something familiar yet something withheld; just as when we try to piece together the parts of a dream after we wake, we are left grasping for answers now out of reach. This dream state is an idea carried forward in Jean-Philippe Dordolo’s cast painting 'Jeder blaue Mond, ein freudiger Funke', in which a figure sleeps, seemingly peaceful, while through the window we can see the world burn. Or perhaps rather than the untroubled rest we first perceive, he is dreaming of riots, rebellion and insurrection, a world razed to the ground and rebuilt anew.

And so there is hope. We catch a glimpse of it in May Hands’ rough hand-worked ceramics, which speak of a direct connection to the earth and a desire to mould and shape our world. Their shimmering glazes, introducing flashes of colour, are like the first spots of light leading us through the darkness. Passing through the rippled hand-blown, pink-tinted glass of David Murphy’s window-like sculpture, the cold light is transformed, casting its warm glow across the wall. The light changes and refracts as it passes through, offering a multitude of possibilities for where we go from here. Finally, Ben Jamie’s swirling, icy toned abstractions offer us some relief as – warmed by the late winter sun – the first fingers of spring break through. The colour and warmth of these works bring with them hope for the future. 

“Every moment the patches of green grew bigger and the patches of snow grew smaller. Every moment more and more of the trees shook off their robes of snow. Soon, wherever you looked, instead of white shapes you saw the dark green of firs or the black prickly branches of bare oaks and beeches and elms. Then the mist turned from white to gold and presently cleared away altogether. Shafts of delicious sunlight struck down onto the forest floor and overhead you could see a blue sky between the tree-tops.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe