The Art of Resistance: Defending Academic Freedom since 1933 | Page 158
Jenny Mellings?British
Armorial Dwelling
2000
Signed (on rear)
Unframed
Oil on Coated
Aluminium
58.5 x 38 cm
Guide Price £350
“
Jenny completed her foundation course at
Bournemouth College of Art and Design, moving
on to a BA at Exeter College of Art and Design,
followed by an MA at the University of Plymouth.
Her work has been showcased at galleries and
universities up and down the country. A current
theme of her work is how humans engage with
the virtual world of the internet.
Many of the accounts I have heard of escape from persecution, war and
oppression, are those of artists and other creative people, forced to
flee regimes from across the world in the 20th and 21st centuries.
They include the late ceramicist, Lucy Rie, whose father was a doctor
and associate of Sigmund Freud, and a close family friend, one of Lucy’s
assistants, both forced to flee Nazi Berlin. More recently, I’ve been
spiritually uplifted by the music of a contemporary jazz musician and
composer whose family fled Lebanon, and met a young Syrian filmmaker
whose quest for freedom of expression had brought him to the UK.
So many of those who have sou ght refuge in the ‘free’ world, where the
boundaries are ever changing, have radically and positively illuminated
our lives with their company, creativity and intense appreciation of life
and liberation.
This modest contribution to the cause was derived from a short
animation I made in 2003, in which a construction morphed into several
architectural styles and states. Its origins are the wrecked buildings
featured in news reports of political strife and war. The edifice became a
metaphor for the ongoing mutability of life, struggles of opposing forces
and those caught up within them, as well as inner restraints and conflicts.
It probably goes without saying that the birds represent freedom.
jenny mellings
156 The Art of Resistance? Defending Academic Freedom
”
Lot 53