abstractartinstallationpublicrealm

PLACE OF SAFETY

Art installation by Kathy Williams as part of Ventnor Fringe

Over the last 5 years Boojum&Snark has provided numerous opportunities and support to artists and creative practitioners. In 2022 we asked Kathy Williams to produce a window installation to mark the transition into the new year. This Time.This Place was joyously brave and contemplated the everchanging nature of things. It also provided Kathy an opportunity to work in large scale again reinvigorating her practice. Since then she has had several installations incorporating public participation as part of her process, the most recent being Just Paint (& play) at Brighton Library.

Place of Safety / Spectre / configuration by T Mikich

Forward to July 2024 and after a successful Arts Council grant Kathy has created her most ambitious public realm installation to date. PLACE OF SAFETY at Ventnor Fringe has evolved through a series of public workshops engaging with themes of safety, belonging, security and well-being. Using abstract mark-making participants were encouraged to embrace a new visual language to express emotions and feelings. You can hear more about this process in the insightful interview by Simon Perry for On The Wight

What I thought.  Ribbons of colours, drippy walls, and luminous three-dimensional lights gather together in Place of Safety, the latest abstract public realm installation by artist Kathy Williams. 

Place of Safety is an installation at the shelter located in La Falaise car park, Ventnor. La Falaise, which means high steep rock, was once a rambling buidling that sat perilously close the the cliff edge. It’s last incarnation was as a 16 bedroom hotel stuffed with aphidsirista plants. Guests pulled bells for service and enjoyed meals with sea views. Eventually decay set in. Keeping the name, La Falaise was demolished by the council and today it’s the site of a car park and shelter. La Falaise shelter is an outpost, a handy retreat from the elements when you walk along the coastal path and provides an ideal setting to explore the complexities of safety.

Place of Safety has evolved out of Kathy’s obsession to provide the public with opportunities to participate in her work – she calls this Painting As A Democratic Art (PAADA). Previous installations at the Quay Arts Centre and recently at Brighton Library have encouraged visitors to wield a paintbrush and make marks that sit alongside, in front or even over the artist’s work. The result is a joyful cacophony of marks, colours, gestures which, long after they are taken down, stick in the participants’ memory as moments of abandon, expression and fun. These events then inform Kathy’s practice and have contributed to Place of Safety. Here she has gathered ideas, feelings and emotions and assimilated them into her work where, once again, the public is very much at the heart. 

Beacon of Hope in background / configuration by T Mikich

Immediately catching your eye as you gaze towards La Falaise is a towering 9-foot cylindrical sculpture, splashed with vibrant pink markings. This is the Beacon of Hope welcoming you to the Place of Safety. When you enter you’re effectively walking into a painting – an open invitation to be a part of a whirlygig of expression. Bright colour marks on clear acrylic allow you to inhabit a world of shapeshifting form and colour. Stay. The longer you stay, the more you see as the elements transform in a kaleidoscopic way. The space, if you allow it, becomes your visual playground. In one beat as you peak through the Beacon, a slither of the horizon is framed by a rhapsodic pink dance – a startling new way to view the familiar seascape.  In another moment an unexpected reflection becomes a fleeting spectral presence, a move to the left and it vanishes. Counterintuitively Place of Safety affords a rare opportunity to lose yourself and explore. Each step alters perspective. You can catch these fleeting configurations in memory or film as Kathy’s intent is to encourage you to curate your own experience, to hold what pleases you close, to find treasure in the moment. At twilight, the neon lighting intensifies the coloured shapes. Darkness brings light.

Place of Safety / Rain and Mizzle / configuration by T Mikich

Go configure! Catch it while you can. Place of Safety is at La Falaise shelter, Ventnor. Open daily 11am-10pm up to and including Sunday 28 July and is supported by Arts Council England.

Kathy Williams / Place of Safety / Image by Simon Avery

Kathy Williams is a visual artist and educator whose practice is rooted in inclusivity and democratising the creative process. With an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London, and a QTS and MA in Arts and Education from UCL, her career has been dedicated to exploring innovative ways to involve diverse communities in her work. Drawing on her own experiences as a neurodiverse individual from a working-class background, Williams creates opportunities for collaboration and dialogue, challenging traditional art-making hierarchies. She uses she/her pronouns. kathywilliamsartist.co.uk

Place of Safety is a partnership project. Special thanks to Kreative Studios, Sean Turner, Ventnor Town Council, Ventnor Exchange, Words and Stuff