Exhibiting at The Royal Academy Summer Show 2023

The Summer Exhibition, held at the Royal Academy at Piccadilly in London, is the world’s oldest open submission exhibition – which means that anyone can enter their work to be considered for inclusion. It has happened every year since 1769 and this year there were 16,500 entries from across the world, which were whittled down to around 1,600.

Celebrated British painter David Remfry RA takes the reins as the 2023 exhibition co-ordinator. Remfry’s Summer Exhibition will explore the theme Only Connect, taken from the famous quote in Howards End by E.M. Forster:

“Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.”

At 80 years young, David Remfry wanted to highlight the loss and importance of human connection in an age where modern communications can often serve not to join us, but to separate, isolate and divide.

I began thinking about what ‘Only Connect’ meant to me . I had been working on a series of Still Life pieces which have physical reflective properties. This often resulted in the finished piece containing at least one, distorted self portrait although it may be somewhat hidden. The teapot series was a development of this, but became much more than simply reflecting the Artist.

Tea is never just about tea. It’s about listening, sharing, supporting and putting the world to rights. It’s a national obsession, daily routine and rooted deep within our culture.

I put out a call to my local community for teapots. The brief was simple – 1 teapot per household. It was to be their choice, I had no idea what would turn up, I just had to deal with it.

The response was amazing.

As well as familiar faces and friends, I had complete strangers turning up on my doorstep, telling me their life stories, memories of family and living in the local area. Some pots were precious, some handmade, some from community groups. Over the course of 2 months I painted 5 teapot pictures in soft pastel. Each picture features 3 or 4 pots, brought together in one picture to reflect the community and the spirit of what it means to share.

I entered ‘Tea and Sympathy’ for the Summer Exhibition. It features Rosies rather splendid, highly decorative teapot which belonged to her Grandmother. Rosie recalled cleaning it very carefully as a child and it now has a special place in her home, kept in a  display cabinet.

The pink teapot was handmade by Susan. Susan and I went to Art college together and she is a very dear friend. The metal teapots came from St.Cuthbert’s church hall in Shotley Bridge, where I live.  These are used for Christenings, weddings, coffee mornings and the like, so have served hundreds, possibly thousands of cups of tea over the years. This picture means a great deal to me because it’s about my local community and the connections between us. I first started teaching drawing classes in the church hall, so it’s wonderful to have that acknowledgement within the picture. If you look closely, there is also the smallest self portrait I have ever painted in there too.

I have been fortunate in being accepted by several prestigious exhibitions in recent years, but I have to admit, being accepted for the RA is something I only ever dreamt about and I feel hugely honoured!

I visited with my husband on the last Private View day and was overwhelmed by the whole show. It is vast, hung across 10 different rooms and even after almost 4 hours (with a tea and cake break in between) I felt we only scratched the surface. It was wonderful to see works by a few people I knew and had exhibited with previously, namely Russell Heron and Elizabeth Nast (also members of the Society of Graphic Fine Art), plus Clare Thatcher and Jen Orpin who I exhibited with at Contemporary Six Gallery in Manchester recently.

I was thrilled to see work by the late, great Paula Rego and the wonderful Cornelia Parker. As much as I enjoy purely pastel exhibitions, I do love exhibiting my work amongst different media and approaches. It makes for an exciting show and I also passionately believe in showcasing the pastel medium alongside oils, acrylics etc to highlight what a wonderful medium it is.

My work is hung in Room 6, which has been curated by Clare Woods RA and painted in the most fabulous green. Woods has arranged the display to follow in colour and tone, starting with monochrome and subdued tones, which gradually builds to a full riot of deep, rich colour as you move around the room from left to right across the 4 walls.

My piece is hung amongst the transitional stage from monochrome to colour. It is a stunningly beautiful, opulent display. I could have stayed there all day, just soaking it up, feeling very thankful and just a bit emotional, especially as a red dot had appeared to indicate it had been sold.

Sadly, due to rail strikes, I could not make it to Varnishing Day, which is a private view day exclusively for exhibiting Artists. It is steeped in tradition includes a special church service for Artists at St James’s Church, Piccadilly, lead by The Revd Dr Ayala Lepine, who reportedly gave a moving and thoughtful address around the theme of Only Connect.

Revd Lepine kindly forwarded a copy of her sermon to me, from which the following is an extract:

‘…The poet Kae Tempest recently wrote a book titled On Connection, as a warm- hearted provocation for us all to get it together by figuring out how we are already united across our differences, more than the sum of our parts. Creativity, they explain, encourages connection. And connection, as Tempest puts it, ‘to true, uncomfortable self allows us to take responsibility for our impact on other people, rather than going blindly through life in a disconnected buzz of one day to the next…Creativity in the ability to feel wonder and the desire to respond to what we find startling… Or, more simply, creativity is any act of love.’

The 255th Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition runs June 13- August 20 2023.