LS Arts sent two writers down to the launch night of Suki: A Small Life at Leeds Gallery. Read their responses below and enjoy sketches they made at the life drawing class held during the evening.
4/5 Stars
Making my way to the exhibition Suki: A Small Life, I expected to be met with the disapproving stares of a serious art crowd, low lighting and berets and an air of cultural superiority. The reality couldn’t have been more different. Welcomed into the gallery with a glass of cava, I immediately relaxed into a light, informal atmosphere, with the idle chit chat of the crowd and soft jazz playing in the background. There was a naked woman standing in the middle of the room, but this felt perfectly natural. It seemed that all the societal discomforts surrounding the naked body had been left at the door. Viewers were here to appreciate the art of the human form.
The audience were arranged in a semicircle around Suki, who gave a succession of challenging poses, which we were invited to draw. As we scribbled away excerpts from Suki’s book A Small Life were read to us. The reading evoked a personal response to the model before us and offered an insight to the woman behind the “form”. In the Q&A session that followed the reading Suki expressed to the group how often when life modelling she becomes a mere ‘thing’, comparable to a bowl of fruit or a table. However drawing her accompanied by her insightful poetry and deeply intimate prose dismissed any inclination to view the model objectively.
The 36 artists represented on the walls of the gallery offered diverse interpretations of a common subject; as if each piece captured a different mood of the sitter. Of my favourites were the continuous line drawings by Alison Wallis. In simple graphite on white paper these 3 pieces had a bare, distressed tone emphasised by the free quality of the line, unfinished sections of the figure and anguished compositions of the form. Margaret Swift’s Schiele-esque depictions were equally successful. They captured a childlike vulnerably in the sitter with the muscles and bones defined to a fragile degree.
This is an evening where we were able to view incredible artworks, draw an accomplished life model and be privy to some of her insightful, thought provoking and really superb writing. As for Suki herself she still remains a bit of an enigma; a woman with a cautious expression and a turbulent past yet an unflinching confidence in her birthday suit. This unusual event combined literature and art to create an enlightening cultural multivitamin that will have me sorted for the week.
Holly Pepper
4/5 Stars
The identity of the life model is often overlooked, their purpose being merely a body whereupon the artist’s eye can trace the subtle rippling light on pallid skin, or the soft heaving dance of a chest. That’s why the concept of this exhibition is so ingenious, by focusing on the life model herself, a voice is given to an otherwise silent being.
Various portraits of the life model, Suki, hung on the wall in the studio where the audience was invited to draw her. She stood in the centre, adapting her poses in response to the narrative of a live reading of her book that consisted of candid prose interspersed with poetry. There was difficulty in the execution of this live reading during the life drawing class; it became hard to focus on the one or the other. Despite this, there was an intense sense of intimacy and vulnerability that was quite poignant, especially when certain passages delineated in utter honesty some very dark moments in the model’s life, whilst she herself remained silently frozen and statuette, her eyes unflinching.
The appeal of the launch night was the live reading and drawing. The exhibition itself and the portraits on show lack the knife-edge impact of astounding work. So, truthfully I wouldn’t be too eager to visit the exhibition now.
Richard Jarram