Vanessa Brassey
www.vanessabrassey.com
@vanessa.brassey
Statement:
Swimming at the ponds has been an unchanged ritual for over a hundred years. But the pandemic changed everything. It alerted the swimmers to the preciousness of those ponds. It made them grateful. It made them say it out loud. It brought them together in a shared sudden awareness, that right in the heart of the heartless, anonymous, metropolis of London…euphoria awaits.
For many, the pandemic changed everything and nothing and my two paintings celebrating this intoxicating paradox, narrating the viewer through the discovery of a new euphoria that can flourish by changing one’s attention to one’s own existing environment. Nothing needs to change for everything to change.
Both pictures are two chapters from the same story. The story of a particular kind of euphoria discovered at the swimming ponds on Hampstead Heath. These ponds have provided over one hundred years of camaraderie, joy, health, and wellbeing. In contrast to the quiet sanctuary of The Ladies Pond, the men’s pond is always boisterous. A mix of squeals, splashes, and whoops of delight as divers get in. Visitors speak of the chaotic and friendly changing areas – naked bodies, balls and bums, and bouncing around. A liberation.
www.vanessabrassey.com
@vanessa.brassey
Statement:
Swimming at the ponds has been an unchanged ritual for over a hundred years. But the pandemic changed everything. It alerted the swimmers to the preciousness of those ponds. It made them grateful. It made them say it out loud. It brought them together in a shared sudden awareness, that right in the heart of the heartless, anonymous, metropolis of London…euphoria awaits.
For many, the pandemic changed everything and nothing and my two paintings celebrating this intoxicating paradox, narrating the viewer through the discovery of a new euphoria that can flourish by changing one’s attention to one’s own existing environment. Nothing needs to change for everything to change.
Both pictures are two chapters from the same story. The story of a particular kind of euphoria discovered at the swimming ponds on Hampstead Heath. These ponds have provided over one hundred years of camaraderie, joy, health, and wellbeing. In contrast to the quiet sanctuary of The Ladies Pond, the men’s pond is always boisterous. A mix of squeals, splashes, and whoops of delight as divers get in. Visitors speak of the chaotic and friendly changing areas – naked bodies, balls and bums, and bouncing around. A liberation.
Top Vintage. The Long Jump at the Mens Pond in the Semi Egyptian Style After Hockney
52cm x 17cm Oil on Wine Box 2022 |
The Men's Pond in Summer
75 x 50 x 0.5cm Oil and mixed media on stretched canvas panel |