A friendly and fun dance fitness class for children aged five to seven, based on ZumbaKids routines. We break down steps, add games and explore different regions of the globe.
There will be a Highgate Society Spring Social on Friday 18th March from 6.30 – 8pm. Join us for a glass of fizz and to meet your neighbours. At 10A South Grove. All welcome, £5 on the door.
A friendly and fun dance fitness class for children aged five to seven, based on ZumbaKids routines. We break down steps, add games and explore different regions of the globe.
04 October, 10:30-12:30 – SAVE THE DATE!
The Highgate Coffee & Computers volunteers
What is Mindfulness?
‘Mindfulness’ is at the very heart of meditational practice and trains us to focus on the present moment. This allows us to gain insight into mental patterns that sometimes cause negative emotions. We also learn, through experience what it means to spend less time with our thoughts and spend more time in our bodies enjoying life. It can be practiced by people from all walks of life and is becoming more and more popular as a means of psychological treatment. There is now a strong evidence base demonstrating that it can be very beneficial for those experiencing depression and anxiety, as well as many other conditions. Mindfulness allows us to make friends with our thinking mind making us less vulnerable to negative mental activity. Such practice can bring about a deep sense of inner peace and a fresh acceptance of reality itself.
The Eight Sessions
This new and innovative group will take place over eight weekly sessions, each of 2-hours duration and covers the fundamentals of mindfulness meditation, applied theory and practice. Some aspects of CBT will also be used within the course syllabus where required to help group members to deal with dysfunctional thought patterns and behaviours. This specific group has been successfully taught in several London universities and also within the NHS. This group will help you to:
- improve your focus and concentration levels
- lower bodily stress and increase relaxation
- explore how your mind works
- explore how your mind habitually creates unhealthy thought processes and worry
- help you to prevent the arising of depressive moods before they spiral
- achieve a robust and healthy mind, accepting reality and the world around you
- work towards acceptance of unhealthy emotions
- achieve a deep sense of calm, patience and stillness
- grow and mature as a true human being and explore what it means to be ‘me’
This will be particularly helpful for those people experiencing stress, depression, anxiety, attention problems or any condition involving a fast-thinking anxious mind.
IMPORTANT NOTE
Commitment to the full x8 weekly sessions is imperative, as is the diligent undertaking of daily life meditation tasks between sessions. Only those people who are willing to make the commitment and complete the between session tasks should attend. Places are limited to ensure a high quality of client support. This course is open to everyone but attendance must be booked in advance and approved by the course leader before the beginning of the programme. All attendees must be 18+ with any exceptions discussed prior to the beginning of the course.
Venues:
* Monday Highgate Class – Jackson’s Lane, 269a Archway Road, London, N6 5AA (directly opposite Highgate tube)
* Tuesday Colchester (Essex) Class – Firstsite, Lewis Gardens, High St, Colchester, Essex, CO1 1JH
Course Start Dates:
* Highgate (North London) Class – Monday evenings beginning on 4th April 2016 for 8 weeks
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Highgate Dates (8-weeks minus bank holidays) |
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04 Apr 2016 – Session 1 |
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11 Apr 2016 – Session 2 |
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18 Apr 2016 – Session 3 |
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25 Apr 2016 – Session 4 |
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09 May 2016 – Session 5 |
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16 May 2016 – Session 6 |
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23 May 2016 – Session 7 |
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06 Jun 2016 – Session 8 |
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* Colchester (Essex) Class – Tuesday evenings – Awaiting New Dates
Times:
* Highgate, North London – 6.30pm to 8.30pm.
Price: £225 (Concessions £195 for OAPS, F/T students, unemployed, if booking as a pair/couple) – please note this can be paid in x2 instalments, with half the payment being made as a deposit prior to the course and the balance being due just before session 1.
HOW TO BOOK? – To book your place please email: info@jamieshavdia.com or call 07792 755132. Booking instructions will then be emailed to you, including how to make your payment online.
Leo Henghes invites you to an illustrated talk and discussion on development projects in Uganda. Since 2013 Leo has been working there to set up UniTED, an organisation which forges development collaborations between students.
Having been raised in Highgate, he will use an account of his life in Uganda to discuss issues of global citizenship and the clash between idealism and pragmatism in creating social change.
Reserve your free place with EventBrite http://leohenghes1.eventbrite.com
What is Mindfulness?
‘Mindfulness’ is at the very heart of meditational practice and trains us to focus on the present moment. This allows us to gain insight into mental patterns that sometimes cause negative emotions. We also learn, through experience what it means to spend less time with our thoughts and spend more time in our bodies enjoying life. It can be practiced by people from all walks of life and is becoming more and more popular as a means of psychological treatment. There is now a strong evidence base demonstrating that it can be very beneficial for those experiencing depression and anxiety, as well as many other conditions. Mindfulness allows us to make friends with our thinking mind making us less vulnerable to negative mental activity. Such practice can bring about a deep sense of inner peace and a fresh acceptance of reality itself.
The Eight Sessions
This new and innovative group will take place over eight weekly sessions, each of 2-hours duration and covers the fundamentals of mindfulness meditation, applied theory and practice. Some aspects of CBT will also be used within the course syllabus where required to help group members to deal with dysfunctional thought patterns and behaviours. This specific group has been successfully taught in several London universities and also within the NHS. This group will help you to:
- improve your focus and concentration levels
- lower bodily stress and increase relaxation
- explore how your mind works
- explore how your mind habitually creates unhealthy thought processes and worry
- help you to prevent the arising of depressive moods before they spiral
- achieve a robust and healthy mind, accepting reality and the world around you
- work towards acceptance of unhealthy emotions
- achieve a deep sense of calm, patience and stillness
- grow and mature as a true human being and explore what it means to be ‘me’
This will be particularly helpful for those people experiencing stress, depression, anxiety, attention problems or any condition involving a fast-thinking anxious mind.
IMPORTANT NOTE
Commitment to the full x8 weekly sessions is imperative, as is the diligent undertaking of daily life meditation tasks between sessions. Only those people who are willing to make the commitment and complete the between session tasks should attend. Places are limited to ensure a high quality of client support. This course is open to everyone but attendance must be booked in advance and approved by the course leader before the beginning of the programme. All attendees must be 18+ with any exceptions discussed prior to the beginning of the course.
Venues:
* Monday Highgate Class – Jackson’s Lane, 269a Archway Road, London, N6 5AA (directly opposite Highgate tube)
* Tuesday Colchester (Essex) Class – Firstsite, Lewis Gardens, High St, Colchester, Essex, CO1 1JH
Course Start Dates:
* Highgate (North London) Class – Monday evenings beginning on 4th April 2016 for 8 weeks
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Highgate Dates (8-weeks minus bank holidays) |
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04 Apr 2016 – Session 1 |
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11 Apr 2016 – Session 2 |
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18 Apr 2016 – Session 3 |
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25 Apr 2016 – Session 4 |
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09 May 2016 – Session 5 |
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16 May 2016 – Session 6 |
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23 May 2016 – Session 7 |
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06 Jun 2016 – Session 8 |
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* Colchester (Essex) Class – Tuesday evenings – Awaiting New Dates
Times:
* Highgate, North London – 6.30pm to 8.30pm.
Price: £225 (Concessions £195 for OAPS, F/T students, unemployed, if booking as a pair/couple) – please note this can be paid in x2 instalments, with half the payment being made as a deposit prior to the course and the balance being due just before session 1.
HOW TO BOOK? – To book your place please email: info@jamieshavdia.com or call 07792 755132. Booking instructions will then be emailed to you, including how to make your payment online.
A friendly and fun dance fitness class for children aged five to seven, based on ZumbaKids routines. We break down steps, add games and explore different regions of the globe.
The discussion will be led by Dr Joseph Barnard of Barnard Microsystems
Paintings by Ron Delavigne 1919-2013
Curated by Jason Sumray
15-28 April 2016
Ron Delavigne’s extraordinary images were defined by his experiences as a Far East POW from 1942 to 1945. Trained at St Martins, his paintings always had a strong brooding mood and he was highly regarded by his contemporaries for his fine draughtsmanship and sensitivity. This exhibition concentrates on his late work which is characterised by its increasingly spare and focussed imagery. What finally surfaced from deep within were haunting, inexplicable images that spoke indirectly. Not specifically ‘war paintings’, but images that had emerged from an artist who had been forced to look at the core of things and has witnessed humanity stripped down and laid bare.
Despite some early success with a solo show at the Alwin Gallery, London and his work collected by some prominent figures, Delavigne shunned the art world and preferred a quiet, almost hermitic existence, his paintings known only to a few. This is the first time these works have been seen in public.
A reccurring theme in Delavigne’s work was his haunting images of owls perched on a post. It was, perhaps, an image that stood in for the suppressed memory of experience. At the age of 79, he transformed it, for one time only, to a decapitated head on a stick with flies buzzing around: the gruesome punishment he had witnessed in Changi jail. The painting ‘The Time of Silence’ is now in the Imperial War Museum Collection. A full size reproduction will form part of the Highgate show. Visitors to the exhibition will be also be able to listen to Delavigne’s moving testament recorded for the Imperial War Museum in 1998.
Delavigne’s troubled imagery was rendered in the English romantic landscape tradition to which he had his stylistic roots. Although certainly influenced by Goya’s etchings and Black Paintings, Delavigne was never an overt expressionist. It seems that he couldn’t help but instil his disturbing images with a quiet English poetry. The potent mix of subtle lyricism with stark imagery is compelling. There is an exhilarating mix of delicacy and rawness, beauty and bleakness.
Ron Delavigne lived his whole life in Highgate and died aged 94 in 2013. His gravestone, in the form of an artist’s palette, is in Highgate Cemetery. It is, of course, entirely appropriate to hold this exhibition in Highgate, where his widow Rita Delavigne continues to live.
A catalogue will accompany the show.
To coincide with ‘Paintings of Ron Delavigne 1919 -2013’ the Gallery is excited to host a Discussion Event on Sunday 17 April, 5-7pm, exploring the theme of Art, War and the Role of Memory. We are delighted to have as guest panellists Richard Cork: art historian, critic, broadcaster and exhibition curator, (‘A Bitter Truth: Avant-garde and the Great War: book and accompanying exhibition at RA)
Dr Glenn Sujo: writer, artist, educator and curator (‘Legacies of Silence: The Visual Arts and Holocaust Memory:’ book and accompanying exhibition at Imperial War Museum).
John Keane: painter, Gulf War artist, father was POW on Burma-Siam railway.
Albyn Leah Hall: novelist and psychotherapist. It will be chaired by Estelle Lovatt: FRSA – Independent art critic & art history Lecturer BBC Radio & TV.
Tickets: £10 on the door (£5 HLSI members) or reserve in advance on 020 8340 3343 or at admin@hlsi.net
Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm; closed Mondays.
Paintings by Ron Delavigne 1919-2013
Curated by Jason Sumray
15-28 April 2016
Ron Delavigne’s extraordinary images were defined by his experiences as a Far East POW from 1942 to 1945. Trained at St Martins, his paintings always had a strong brooding mood and he was highly regarded by his contemporaries for his fine draughtsmanship and sensitivity. This exhibition concentrates on his late work which is characterised by its increasingly spare and focussed imagery. What finally surfaced from deep within were haunting, inexplicable images that spoke indirectly. Not specifically ‘war paintings’, but images that had emerged from an artist who had been forced to look at the core of things and has witnessed humanity stripped down and laid bare.
Despite some early success with a solo show at the Alwin Gallery, London and his work collected by some prominent figures, Delavigne shunned the art world and preferred a quiet, almost hermitic existence, his paintings known only to a few. This is the first time these works have been seen in public.
A reccurring theme in Delavigne’s work was his haunting images of owls perched on a post. It was, perhaps, an image that stood in for the suppressed memory of experience. At the age of 79, he transformed it, for one time only, to a decapitated head on a stick with flies buzzing around: the gruesome punishment he had witnessed in Changi jail. The painting ‘The Time of Silence’ is now in the Imperial War Museum Collection. A full size reproduction will form part of the Highgate show. Visitors to the exhibition will be also be able to listen to Delavigne’s moving testament recorded for the Imperial War Museum in 1998.
Delavigne’s troubled imagery was rendered in the English romantic landscape tradition to which he had his stylistic roots. Although certainly influenced by Goya’s etchings and Black Paintings, Delavigne was never an overt expressionist. It seems that he couldn’t help but instil his disturbing images with a quiet English poetry. The potent mix of subtle lyricism with stark imagery is compelling. There is an exhilarating mix of delicacy and rawness, beauty and bleakness.
Ron Delavigne lived his whole life in Highgate and died aged 94 in 2013. His gravestone, in the form of an artist’s palette, is in Highgate Cemetery. It is, of course, entirely appropriate to hold this exhibition in Highgate, where his widow Rita Delavigne continues to live.
A catalogue will accompany the show.
To coincide with ‘Paintings of Ron Delavigne 1919 -2013’ the Gallery is excited to host a Discussion Event on Sunday 17 April, 5-7pm, exploring the theme of Art, War and the Role of Memory. We are delighted to have as guest panellists Richard Cork: art historian, critic, broadcaster and exhibition curator, (‘A Bitter Truth: Avant-garde and the Great War: book and accompanying exhibition at RA)
Dr Glenn Sujo: writer, artist, educator and curator (‘Legacies of Silence: The Visual Arts and Holocaust Memory:’ book and accompanying exhibition at Imperial War Museum).
John Keane: painter, Gulf War artist, father was POW on Burma-Siam railway.
Albyn Leah Hall: novelist and psychotherapist. It will be chaired by Estelle Lovatt: FRSA – Independent art critic & art history Lecturer BBC Radio & TV.
Tickets: £10 on the door (£5 HLSI members) or reserve in advance on 020 8340 3343 or at admin@hlsi.net
Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm; closed Mondays.
Paintings by Ron Delavigne 1919-2013
Curated by Jason Sumray
15-28 April 2016
Ron Delavigne’s extraordinary images were defined by his experiences as a Far East POW from 1942 to 1945. Trained at St Martins, his paintings always had a strong brooding mood and he was highly regarded by his contemporaries for his fine draughtsmanship and sensitivity. This exhibition concentrates on his late work which is characterised by its increasingly spare and focussed imagery. What finally surfaced from deep within were haunting, inexplicable images that spoke indirectly. Not specifically ‘war paintings’, but images that had emerged from an artist who had been forced to look at the core of things and has witnessed humanity stripped down and laid bare.
Despite some early success with a solo show at the Alwin Gallery, London and his work collected by some prominent figures, Delavigne shunned the art world and preferred a quiet, almost hermitic existence, his paintings known only to a few. This is the first time these works have been seen in public.
A reccurring theme in Delavigne’s work was his haunting images of owls perched on a post. It was, perhaps, an image that stood in for the suppressed memory of experience. At the age of 79, he transformed it, for one time only, to a decapitated head on a stick with flies buzzing around: the gruesome punishment he had witnessed in Changi jail. The painting ‘The Time of Silence’ is now in the Imperial War Museum Collection. A full size reproduction will form part of the Highgate show. Visitors to the exhibition will be also be able to listen to Delavigne’s moving testament recorded for the Imperial War Museum in 1998.
Delavigne’s troubled imagery was rendered in the English romantic landscape tradition to which he had his stylistic roots. Although certainly influenced by Goya’s etchings and Black Paintings, Delavigne was never an overt expressionist. It seems that he couldn’t help but instil his disturbing images with a quiet English poetry. The potent mix of subtle lyricism with stark imagery is compelling. There is an exhilarating mix of delicacy and rawness, beauty and bleakness.
Ron Delavigne lived his whole life in Highgate and died aged 94 in 2013. His gravestone, in the form of an artist’s palette, is in Highgate Cemetery. It is, of course, entirely appropriate to hold this exhibition in Highgate, where his widow Rita Delavigne continues to live.
A catalogue will accompany the show.
To coincide with ‘Paintings of Ron Delavigne 1919 -2013’ the Gallery is excited to host a Discussion Event on Sunday 17 April, 5-7pm, exploring the theme of Art, War and the Role of Memory. We are delighted to have as guest panellists Richard Cork: art historian, critic, broadcaster and exhibition curator, (‘A Bitter Truth: Avant-garde and the Great War: book and accompanying exhibition at RA)
Dr Glenn Sujo: writer, artist, educator and curator (‘Legacies of Silence: The Visual Arts and Holocaust Memory:’ book and accompanying exhibition at Imperial War Museum).
John Keane: painter, Gulf War artist, father was POW on Burma-Siam railway.
Albyn Leah Hall: novelist and psychotherapist. It will be chaired by Estelle Lovatt: FRSA – Independent art critic & art history Lecturer BBC Radio & TV.
Tickets: £10 on the door (£5 HLSI members) or reserve in advance on 020 8340 3343 or at admin@hlsi.net
Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm; closed Mondays.
To coincide with the exhibition ‘Paintings of Ron Delavigne 1919 -2013’ Highgate Gallery is excited to host a Discussion Event on Sunday 17 April, 5-7pm, exploring the theme of Art, War and the Role of Memory. We are delighted to have as guest panellists Richard Cork: art historian, critic, broadcaster and exhibition curator, (‘A Bitter Truth: Avant-garde and the Great War: book and accompanying exhibition at RA)
Dr Glenn Sujo: writer, artist, educator and curator (‘Legacies of Silence: The Visual Arts and Holocaust Memory:’ book and accompanying exhibition at Imperial War Museum).
John Keane: painter, Gulf War artist, father was POW on Burma-Siam railway.
Albyn Leah Hall: novelist and psychotherapist. It will be chaired by Estelle Lovatt: FRSA – Independent art critic & art history Lecturer BBC Radio & TV.
Tickets: £10 on the door (£5 HLSI members) or reserve in advance on 020 8340 3343 or at admin@hlsi.net
What is Mindfulness?
‘Mindfulness’ is at the very heart of meditational practice and trains us to focus on the present moment. This allows us to gain insight into mental patterns that sometimes cause negative emotions. We also learn, through experience what it means to spend less time with our thoughts and spend more time in our bodies enjoying life. It can be practiced by people from all walks of life and is becoming more and more popular as a means of psychological treatment. There is now a strong evidence base demonstrating that it can be very beneficial for those experiencing depression and anxiety, as well as many other conditions. Mindfulness allows us to make friends with our thinking mind making us less vulnerable to negative mental activity. Such practice can bring about a deep sense of inner peace and a fresh acceptance of reality itself.
The Eight Sessions
This new and innovative group will take place over eight weekly sessions, each of 2-hours duration and covers the fundamentals of mindfulness meditation, applied theory and practice. Some aspects of CBT will also be used within the course syllabus where required to help group members to deal with dysfunctional thought patterns and behaviours. This specific group has been successfully taught in several London universities and also within the NHS. This group will help you to:
- improve your focus and concentration levels
- lower bodily stress and increase relaxation
- explore how your mind works
- explore how your mind habitually creates unhealthy thought processes and worry
- help you to prevent the arising of depressive moods before they spiral
- achieve a robust and healthy mind, accepting reality and the world around you
- work towards acceptance of unhealthy emotions
- achieve a deep sense of calm, patience and stillness
- grow and mature as a true human being and explore what it means to be ‘me’
This will be particularly helpful for those people experiencing stress, depression, anxiety, attention problems or any condition involving a fast-thinking anxious mind.
IMPORTANT NOTE
Commitment to the full x8 weekly sessions is imperative, as is the diligent undertaking of daily life meditation tasks between sessions. Only those people who are willing to make the commitment and complete the between session tasks should attend. Places are limited to ensure a high quality of client support. This course is open to everyone but attendance must be booked in advance and approved by the course leader before the beginning of the programme. All attendees must be 18+ with any exceptions discussed prior to the beginning of the course.
Venues:
* Monday Highgate Class – Jackson’s Lane, 269a Archway Road, London, N6 5AA (directly opposite Highgate tube)
* Tuesday Colchester (Essex) Class – Firstsite, Lewis Gardens, High St, Colchester, Essex, CO1 1JH
Course Start Dates:
* Highgate (North London) Class – Monday evenings beginning on 4th April 2016 for 8 weeks
|
Highgate Dates (8-weeks minus bank holidays) |
|
|
|
|
04 Apr 2016 – Session 1 |
|
||
|
11 Apr 2016 – Session 2 |
|
||
|
18 Apr 2016 – Session 3 |
|
||
|
25 Apr 2016 – Session 4 |
|
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09 May 2016 – Session 5 |
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||
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16 May 2016 – Session 6 |
|
||
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23 May 2016 – Session 7 |
|
||
|
06 Jun 2016 – Session 8 |
|
* Colchester (Essex) Class – Tuesday evenings – Awaiting New Dates
Times:
* Highgate, North London – 6.30pm to 8.30pm.
Price: £225 (Concessions £195 for OAPS, F/T students, unemployed, if booking as a pair/couple) – please note this can be paid in x2 instalments, with half the payment being made as a deposit prior to the course and the balance being due just before session 1.
HOW TO BOOK? – To book your place please email: info@jamieshavdia.com or call 07792 755132. Booking instructions will then be emailed to you, including how to make your payment online.
Paintings by Ron Delavigne 1919-2013
Curated by Jason Sumray
15-28 April 2016
Ron Delavigne’s extraordinary images were defined by his experiences as a Far East POW from 1942 to 1945. Trained at St Martins, his paintings always had a strong brooding mood and he was highly regarded by his contemporaries for his fine draughtsmanship and sensitivity. This exhibition concentrates on his late work which is characterised by its increasingly spare and focussed imagery. What finally surfaced from deep within were haunting, inexplicable images that spoke indirectly. Not specifically ‘war paintings’, but images that had emerged from an artist who had been forced to look at the core of things and has witnessed humanity stripped down and laid bare.
Despite some early success with a solo show at the Alwin Gallery, London and his work collected by some prominent figures, Delavigne shunned the art world and preferred a quiet, almost hermitic existence, his paintings known only to a few. This is the first time these works have been seen in public.
A reccurring theme in Delavigne’s work was his haunting images of owls perched on a post. It was, perhaps, an image that stood in for the suppressed memory of experience. At the age of 79, he transformed it, for one time only, to a decapitated head on a stick with flies buzzing around: the gruesome punishment he had witnessed in Changi jail. The painting ‘The Time of Silence’ is now in the Imperial War Museum Collection. A full size reproduction will form part of the Highgate show. Visitors to the exhibition will be also be able to listen to Delavigne’s moving testament recorded for the Imperial War Museum in 1998.
Delavigne’s troubled imagery was rendered in the English romantic landscape tradition to which he had his stylistic roots. Although certainly influenced by Goya’s etchings and Black Paintings, Delavigne was never an overt expressionist. It seems that he couldn’t help but instil his disturbing images with a quiet English poetry. The potent mix of subtle lyricism with stark imagery is compelling. There is an exhilarating mix of delicacy and rawness, beauty and bleakness.
Ron Delavigne lived his whole life in Highgate and died aged 94 in 2013. His gravestone, in the form of an artist’s palette, is in Highgate Cemetery. It is, of course, entirely appropriate to hold this exhibition in Highgate, where his widow Rita Delavigne continues to live.
A catalogue will accompany the show.
To coincide with ‘Paintings of Ron Delavigne 1919 -2013’ the Gallery is excited to host a Discussion Event on Sunday 17 April, 5-7pm, exploring the theme of Art, War and the Role of Memory. We are delighted to have as guest panellists Richard Cork: art historian, critic, broadcaster and exhibition curator, (‘A Bitter Truth: Avant-garde and the Great War: book and accompanying exhibition at RA)
Dr Glenn Sujo: writer, artist, educator and curator (‘Legacies of Silence: The Visual Arts and Holocaust Memory:’ book and accompanying exhibition at Imperial War Museum).
John Keane: painter, Gulf War artist, father was POW on Burma-Siam railway.
Albyn Leah Hall: novelist and psychotherapist. It will be chaired by Estelle Lovatt: FRSA – Independent art critic & art history Lecturer BBC Radio & TV.
Tickets: £10 on the door (£5 HLSI members) or reserve in advance on 020 8340 3343 or at admin@hlsi.net
Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm; closed Mondays.
Paintings by Ron Delavigne 1919-2013
Curated by Jason Sumray
15-28 April 2016
Ron Delavigne’s extraordinary images were defined by his experiences as a Far East POW from 1942 to 1945. Trained at St Martins, his paintings always had a strong brooding mood and he was highly regarded by his contemporaries for his fine draughtsmanship and sensitivity. This exhibition concentrates on his late work which is characterised by its increasingly spare and focussed imagery. What finally surfaced from deep within were haunting, inexplicable images that spoke indirectly. Not specifically ‘war paintings’, but images that had emerged from an artist who had been forced to look at the core of things and has witnessed humanity stripped down and laid bare.
Despite some early success with a solo show at the Alwin Gallery, London and his work collected by some prominent figures, Delavigne shunned the art world and preferred a quiet, almost hermitic existence, his paintings known only to a few. This is the first time these works have been seen in public.
A reccurring theme in Delavigne’s work was his haunting images of owls perched on a post. It was, perhaps, an image that stood in for the suppressed memory of experience. At the age of 79, he transformed it, for one time only, to a decapitated head on a stick with flies buzzing around: the gruesome punishment he had witnessed in Changi jail. The painting ‘The Time of Silence’ is now in the Imperial War Museum Collection. A full size reproduction will form part of the Highgate show. Visitors to the exhibition will be also be able to listen to Delavigne’s moving testament recorded for the Imperial War Museum in 1998.
Delavigne’s troubled imagery was rendered in the English romantic landscape tradition to which he had his stylistic roots. Although certainly influenced by Goya’s etchings and Black Paintings, Delavigne was never an overt expressionist. It seems that he couldn’t help but instil his disturbing images with a quiet English poetry. The potent mix of subtle lyricism with stark imagery is compelling. There is an exhilarating mix of delicacy and rawness, beauty and bleakness.
Ron Delavigne lived his whole life in Highgate and died aged 94 in 2013. His gravestone, in the form of an artist’s palette, is in Highgate Cemetery. It is, of course, entirely appropriate to hold this exhibition in Highgate, where his widow Rita Delavigne continues to live.
A catalogue will accompany the show.
To coincide with ‘Paintings of Ron Delavigne 1919 -2013’ the Gallery is excited to host a Discussion Event on Sunday 17 April, 5-7pm, exploring the theme of Art, War and the Role of Memory. We are delighted to have as guest panellists Richard Cork: art historian, critic, broadcaster and exhibition curator, (‘A Bitter Truth: Avant-garde and the Great War: book and accompanying exhibition at RA)
Dr Glenn Sujo: writer, artist, educator and curator (‘Legacies of Silence: The Visual Arts and Holocaust Memory:’ book and accompanying exhibition at Imperial War Museum).
John Keane: painter, Gulf War artist, father was POW on Burma-Siam railway.
Albyn Leah Hall: novelist and psychotherapist. It will be chaired by Estelle Lovatt: FRSA – Independent art critic & art history Lecturer BBC Radio & TV.
Tickets: £10 on the door (£5 HLSI members) or reserve in advance on 020 8340 3343 or at admin@hlsi.net
Gallery open Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm, Saturday 11am-4pm, Sunday 11am-5pm; closed Mondays.
A friendly and fun dance fitness class for children aged five to seven, based on ZumbaKids routines. We break down steps, add games and explore different regions of the globe.