We out here - black artists in Hastings

WE OUT HERE

1April - 4 June 2023

Devised and curated by local artist Lorna Hamilton-Brown RCA MBE, We Out Here is a showcase for Hastings-based artists of Caribbean heritage who work in different disciplines and mediums.

Hamilton-Brown's creative approach to making art is based on research, attention to detail and social commentary. Her work raises questions, draws attention to issues and can be used as a catalyst for debate. She selected artists Paul Hope, Elaine Mullings, Eugene Palmer, Richard Mark Rawlins and Maggie Scott for this project because of their similar approach.

Eclectic in both aesthetic and approach and comprising drawing, leatherwork, mixed media, painting, textiles and sculpture, We Out Here presents these six artists' individual takes on the world. Through their artworks they invite conversations with each other, the audience and themselves, while boldly declaring - WE OUT HERE.

Woman Blue

Statement for Woman Blue - Elevate written by Rosie Ross & Griffi

Woman Blue - Elevate is an artwork based on an old blues song, first written down and published in 1934 under the title Woman Blue in the book American Ballads and Folk Songs by John and Alan Lomax. Modern versions of the tune can be traced back to 1927, but it was an unknown

18-year-old Black woman, in prison for murder, who is recorded as first having sung the first verse of the song to the Lomaxes. Their published version of the song has been adapted in numerous versions by mainstream artists including Joan Baez and is better known as I Know You Rider. The many versions of the song that have been recorded have all been made by white people; research by Felicity Ford and Lorna Hamilton-Brown has failed to uncover any recordings by Black people.

Part of the Yarnadelic Remixes project's inspiration for Woman Blue - Elevate was to translate Pensivy's punch card - created for a music box - into a punch card for the knitting machine. Hamilton-Brown created two punch cards and subsequently two panels: one in a delicate transparent Lurex, based on the words of the single verse sung by the unknown young woman, and one based on Pensivy's version of the song, in the mottled blue Yarnadelic yarn produced by John Arbon Textiles and named Woman in Blue after the song.

In the blue panel, Hamilton-Brown considered the irregular syncopation and rhythms of jazz and blues, imparting a freestyle switch and change motion to her knitting process. The added cables reference the many versions of the song - the multiple voices, layers and segments - that have come from the original verse.

Alongside this she references the 2/4 beat of the music through 2 rows of knitting and 4 rows of lace.

To honour the unknown woman, Hamilton-Brown has displayed her panel in front of and above the blue panel, forcing the viewer to look at her words. This uncredited young woman now has her moment of fame.

I know you, rider, gon-na miss me when I'm gone I know you, rider, gonna miss me when I'm gone

Gon-na miss yo' li'| ma-ma, baby, f'um roll-in' in yo' arms