Life, Art, Murder & Weather
Quietus - About the Collection
Not long after the Peter Davies/Annelise Trelawny show in April 2017, and whilst still busy hanging shows at both the Old Parsonage in Didsbury and his gallery on Portland Street in Manchester, Colin told me that he wasn't feeling too well; I regularly talked with him at his gallery premises during that Summer as he became more ill, with doctor’s appointments & hospital tests being made to establish the cause. He informed me that he was going to take time out in the August of 2018, and that the gallery was going to be hired out for any of the artists to exhibit their work, yet the artists had to organise the show, sort the invitations out, dates of exhibition, preview etc, as well as manning it themselves.
Upon hearing this information, I leapt at the chance to display & present all the works that had been painted during 2016 that had led up to my neighbour’s murder, as well as paintings completed during 2017, leading up to and just after the murder trial; I booked the show there & then!
The ‘QUIETUS’ show took place for two weeks in September/October 2018 at the Colin Jellicoe Gallery, Portland Street, central Manchester, and featured works by myself & artist Bethany White, that gave death, specifically Holy Death & Bloody Murder, central place.
The show was primarily organised as part of my recovery from the murder; I’d hoped to be able to talk about the incident from my point of view, as I was witness to my neighbour’s life imploding, heard his last words on the morning he was actually murdered, and later that same evening, found his body within the confines of his own furnishings & living space.
It worked - it really worked, in so much as telling friends and complete strangers as much of the story as possible, removed a lot of deep impact emotion within myself, relieving me of distress, devastation and casting it out; I did not want the grief in my life anymore.
It worked in so much as three weeks after the exhibition ended in early October, with only a few days before the second anniversary of the murder, I drove myself down to Wales to visit my ex-neighbour’s grave (I’d never received an invitation to pay my last respects); I told him he’d left a real mess behind for myself & his landlady to clean up, amongst others; that his cats had to be rehoused but found a good home; that it was also time for me to say goodbye.
