Rehema Motherland

I’ve had to do a bit of juggling with the Windrush titles to fit in Iciline’s quilt, which I’ve almost finished, in order to get it  into the exhibition in January. She’s local to Leamington, so although George Saunders is over half done, there won’t room in the gallery for  him too, so he’s become number 7 and is available for display if anyone is interested! I have more quilts to do in the series, and hope that  they might be a nice collection for anyone wishing to promote/engage people’s hopes and fears about integration and immigration, identity and race. https://www.britishfuture.org/  have been in touch and hopefully will be able to spread the news about the exhibition. It’s a wonderful organisation - their tagline is: Working for a confident and welcoming Britain, inclusive and fair to all. Do click the link!

Windrush 4 – Rehema Motherland  is so called because it means mercy in Swahili. Originally I was going  to take Iciline’s daughter’s words from a poem she had written.  Iciline’s daughter Monica Brown was on a BBC television show tracing her  roots back through slavery to Zanzibar. Her heritage is East African  and both Monica and Iciline feel an affinity with the land, but I felt  the original title reflected Monica’s words, and were personal to her,  so thanks to google translate, I came up with Swahili for “mercy”  (rehema) as it is something Iciline said and appears in the text behind  her portrait.

So I have 6 that will be on display. 

Heres some details of the exhibition, which will be at Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum:

I’ll  assume nobody has been before, and that I’d better give you location  details. Royal Leamington Spa is in the middle of the UK not far from  Stratford upon Avon. The gallery is easy to find being right at the  bottom of the main shopping street and between 2 of the main parks (The  Pump Rooms and Jephson Gardens) Here’s the gallery website with full transport and opening details. The address is :

Royal Pump Rooms
The Parade
Royal Leamington Spa
Warwickshire
CV32 4AA      T: 01926 456940

The exhibition will run from 31st January 2025 until 11th May 2025.

I’m  not showing the finished Iciline quilt as I’m keeping that for visitors  to the exhibition but here’s a snippet before the painting is finished  and with bit more to do!

Iciline Brown

As with all the Windrush quilts, as your eye travels across the quilt, you can see that the faces and hands are painted in rich acrylics, trying to capture detail in every line and crease, firmly with us, but all the sitters’ clothing begins to fade away into the background. It’s a deliberate choice by me – a metaphor for the gradual erasure of identity and culture faced by many immigrants as they assimilate into a new society.