Always On My Mind (Part 2) opens Thursday 31st of August 2023 and features the work of 16 artists including:
Louise Reynolds
1) What’s always on your mind these days and is it having an impact on your art work?
Louise Reynolds: "I’m always thinking about the current news. I use it as a point of departure when making my work, where serious topics overlap endlessly with fleeting fad gossip. The outcome gives us all a scrambled understanding of the world we live in, with fragmented images and narratives crossed together. I try to combine these threads in my work, but the actual process of sifting through news feeds is habitual now and I’m always thinking about the newest trends and headlines, and the images they prompt in me."
2): Can you name an art exhibition, art book or artist that changed the way you think?
"I loved the Radical Figures exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery, everything in the show felt so monumental, and it was amazing to see contemporary figurative paintings in such monumental scale. Conceptually Everything is Connected: Art and Conspiracy at the MET was very formative in my ways of thinking about addressing contemporary concerns through my work, and I loved the sense of humour a lot of the work in that show had. Recently the Durer exhibition at the National Gallery was amazing to see as he’s always been one of my heroes, I hadn’t seen his prints in person before and it was magical."
3) What work(s) are you thinking of putting in the "Always On My Mind Part 2" exhibition?
"I’m thinking of putting a new series of drawings into the exhibition. I've been working a lot with coloured pencils on plywood boards, I feel this combination allows for a lot of sensitivity that really appeals to me."
4) Q) The National Brain Appeal provide much-needed funds to support The National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery and the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology – together known as Queen Square. This is one of the world’s leading centres for the diagnosis, treatment and care of patients with neurological and neuromuscular conditions. These include stroke, multiple sclerosis, brain cancer, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia. Have you or your loved ones ever suffered with any of these things?
"My Gran is currently living with dementia and it’s very emotional when glimmers of her past self appear. I see the weight it bears on the rest of my family, especially when she acts out of character. It’s hard to wrestle with the idea of knowing the person you love is somewhat missing but still physically present. I sincerely hope better treatment will be found through funding from important charities like the National Brain Appeal. I have regular migraines too that can take me out for full days, and I hate the creeping feeling of one coming on. I have a lot of empathy for everyone who experiences them, it takes a lot of will to push through."
5) When the critic Jerry Saltz was recently asked what it is he’s looking for in art he answered “A sense of necessity, someone working in their own voice, doing what they can’t not do.” Do you relate to his way of thinking and do you think your own work is something you just can’t not do?
"I’ve always felt that making art was never a choice for me and just a necessity. I’ve always drawn and painted and I can’t imagine life without it. It’s how I relate to the world, and it’s the only thing I genuinely care about doing."
The opening party for Always on my Mind Part 2 is Thursday 31st August 6pm till 9pm at Fitzrovia Gallery, 139 Whitfield Street W1T 5EN
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