Exhibitions 2013 - 2014
FROM
JAMAICA TO NOTTING HILL. RUDI PATTERSON'S VISIONS IN
COLOUR
4 April - 11 June 2014

For over forty years, following a career as an
international model and actor, Rudi Patterson dedicated
himself to painting. From the three successive council flats
he lived in around Notting Hill he produced a vast body of work,
exhibiting widely in London , the UK and internationally – from New
York to Melbourne - throughout the 1970s, 80s and
90s. Following his death last year, this exhibition explores
a single theme; Rudi’s extraordinarily potent and vivid
representations of his native Jamaica. Including many works
never previously exhibited, these depictions of montane landscapes,
plantation villages, luxuriant tropical vegetation, rivers and
beaches conjure a compelling sense of place, intuitively made from
the vantage point of a West London window.
'I'm a Jamaican, I love my island and
its beauty."
Rudi Patterson was also a proud Londoner and Briton. His vivid
portrayals of home were mostly created from three small
painting-bedecked flats in Kensington and Chelsea. At the time of
his death in July 2013, almost all the pictures in this exhibition
were in his flat next to Trellick Tower.

Rudi was born in September 1933 in the sugar
plantation village of Duckenfield, St. Thomas, in the lea of the
Blue Mountains, lush and tropical, where rain comes suddenly and
often. After studying in Kingston, in the late Fifties he set off
to London to become an actor. He took classes at RADA and through
the Swinging Sixties and into the Seventies he was frequently on
stage and celluloid. He acted in such classics as Z Cars, The
Professionals and the Rolling Stones film Sympathy For The Devil.
His modelling success was unprecedented for a black man in that
era: British Airways, Mr Fish, a big jeans campaign. Appearances in
repertory and West End theatre included the ground breaking
gay-themed The Boys In The Band and in 1977 the world premiere of
Michael Tippett’s The Ice Break at Covent Garden.
Entirely self-taught, he began to draw and
paint in 1969 and incessantly so during months of convalescence
after breaking his neck water skiing in 1973. Over four decades he
created around 1000 pictures as well as hundreds of ceramic pieces,
delicately glazed pots, sculptures and platters. He painted in
gouache,watercolour, acrylic and oil. In later years he produced
colour-drenched abstracts and still lifes. When wracked by back
pain he created vivid linear works. Rudi was involved in some 40
exhibitions including one man shows on four continents encompassing
London, Manchester, Jamaica and even Australia.
London allowed his creative juices to flow. He
was at home in every milieu the city could offer; aristocratic,
thespian, bohemian – a keen gallery goer and cultural activist. He
witnessed both London’s decline and ascent, participating in its
evolution from imperium to diversity. He loved the Notting Hill of
market, Carnival and Absolute Beginners and lived through riots,
Rachman and meterosexuality as his generation changed post-war
Britain.

Rudi modellling
"I'm inspired by natural beauty and
harmony, I love to paint."
A Jamaican, even the city dweller or diaspora member, finds his
or her story in landscape. This exhibition is filled with sonorous
landscapes - montane, agricultural, domestic, peopled. Through
these everyday and yet unfamiliar scenes, laden with cultural and
social references, Rudi Patterson’s visions of colour open the
gates of memory, addressing his people’s story.
Jamaican society was created despite
displacement and noted for its defiance, its irieness”.What you see
in these paintings is not as edenistic or arcadian as it seems.
Rudi’s remembrances are seldom singular in their meaning. For those
unfamiliar with island life, the depiction of an orange or mango
harvest can be appreciated simply for the intricate representation
of the fruit laden branches or vibrant use of palette and tone. The
cleverly skewed perspectives, the ripeness of the fruit, the
solidity of the mountains are all evidence of the artist’s
skill.
But if the garden is so magical why are the
people often looking away? In a Patterson painting the many rivers
to cross are not metaphorical; most Jamaican kids of his era had
the chore of journeying to the river every day for water. Colonial,
Depression and wartime era Duckenfield was tough. Crops are not for
decoration but sustenance. Most dwellings are small. Order is
disrupted by hurricanes. Nature’s colours clash.
Slavery was instituted to grow plants with
ruthless efficiency and was a not so distant memory in Rudi’s
youth. But it was the very abundance of indigenous species
cultivated in the rich red soil; the endless varieties of fruit and
vegetables such as mangoes, ackee, breadfruit, cocoa - perhaps 40
in a small back garden plantation - that enabled Jamaicans and
other West Indians to emancipate themselves from physical and
mental slavery and to become, like Rudi, creators in new and old
worlds.
As his contemporary Bob Marley wrote in
Redemption Song:
But my hand was made strong
By the ‘and of the Almighty.
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly.
"Intuitive”was the term he used. These
powerful images came into his head like the duppies (Jamaican for
ghosts) he remembered from childhood evenings walking down unlit
lanes. The took weeks of work – perhaps assisted by an image from a
book of historic plantation houses, a potted tropical plant or a
trailing purple Tradescantia pallida in the window.
The Intuitive frees him from rules, and
transports us to his visual universe. These pictures
represent the New World, but a world
inextricably yoked for centuries to Western classicism. There are
whiffs of Impressionism, Rousseau, Lowry, Fauvist colours.
Patterson presents a uniquely recognisable painterly style. He
manifests memories of lush orchards, the beauty of hibiscus, the
powerful wind tilting the palms, the engulfing heat of bush fires
and recreates his heritage within the four walls of a Notting Hill
concrete high rise.

Rudi working from home
Exhibition texts written by Wesley
Kerr and Novelette-Aldoni Stewart, co-curators of the
exhibition.
To download the original exhibition text:
Rudi
Patterson: From Jamaica to Notting Hill [PDF] (file
size 870Kb)
Rudi
Patterson: Painting Visions in Colour [PDF] (file
size 788Kb)
FEROZKOH. TRADITION AND
CONTINUITY IN AFGHAN ART
15 November 2013 - 23 February
2014
Leighton House Museum is the
venue for the stunning exhibition Ferozkoh: Tradition and
Continuity in Afghan Art, presented by the Museum of Islamic
Art (MIA), Doha, as part of Nour and
Qatar UK
2013 Year of Culture.
Ferozkoh is the result
of a collaboration between the MIA in Doha, Qatar with students and
teachers from Turquoise
Mountain Institute for Afghan Arts and Architecture in
Kabul, Afghanistan. The unifying ambition of the exhibition is the
preservation and continuity of the
traditional arts of the Islamic world – in
both themes and materials – in the present day, and the role of
education in both transmission and translation.
Ferozkoh comprises 18
pairs of objects. Half are historical objects from MIA’s
collection; the products of four great dynasties with connections
to Afghanistan: the Ghaznavids, Timurids, Mughals and Safavids. The
other half of the works were created specifically for the
exhibition by Turquoise Mountain students in response to, and in
conversation with, the historical objects.
The exhibition will be accompanied
by a programme of workshops and activities. All events are
free of charge. Please book by visiting our website:
Click here to find out
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More past exhibitions