The Art of Isolation

The small balcony at home became a sanctuary where I grew and tended to sweet peas, rosemary, daffodils, dahlias, roses and more. Despite everything happening on the ‘outside’ world and perhaps as a result of it and our changed environment, the flowers bloomed brilliantly. It felt fitting to immortalise these moments on paper, respecting at once their fragility and strength.

Watercolour on paper

This year I returned to drawing after a 30 years break, and started attending model drawing sessions. When the COVID-19 crises started I was hoping that drawing will be my meditative escape, yet struggled to find pleasure drawing at home. It was people that I need to draw. Participating in zoom portrait sessions provided this invaluable opportunity – it felt multi-dimensional, live. The 15 minutes timeframe for each drawing instigated one to catch the highlights of facial features and expressions. It also allowed for a quick result and an immediate satisfaction.
Portrait sessions became a main resource during lockdown. They were my time for myself, an escape from my intense life indoors. When I needed to draw and there were no zoom meetings, I drew self-portraits. I chose to submit three ink and wash samples out of a large collection of zoomed portrait drawings. I chose to note the first name of the model and the zoom session date. This reflects the COVID-19 lockdown art for me.

This is a pencil drawing of father and son (Pandee and Chittesh) who attend the Draw Each Other’s Portraits weekly sessions on Zoom, hosted by John Pipal and Mark Lovelace. This was a 15 minute pose and I enjoyed drawing them. Before lockdown, the weekly online sessions were held in a pub, Royal Inn on the Park, in Hackney, East London. Since then they have been held online, attracting people from all over the country, and abroad, to take part. I have been this class for a few years. At first, it was difficult to adjust to drawing people’s portraits via Zoom, which works best if the sitters have a good camera, which in this case they did. Hats off to John and Mark for keeping the class (which is free) going. We appreciate it and are grateful to them.

A realistic charcoal and white pastel drawing on mount board displayed in a light grey frame on a white mount.

The piece is an oil on canvas. Since lockdown I have taken my interest in painting dance, textile patterns and natural forms, and morphed them together in waves of energy and emotion across each canvas. This was the beginning of a series of work where I feel I have found expression and excitement. While I have been working from home and finding new ways to connect with the people in my life, the freedom I have found is through gratitude. The appreciation of the security of my environment, excitement about the potential with the time I have, and the skills I have built up to fight mind over mood. I curate a gallery, founded in a social inclusion project with the ethos that it is a safe space to be brave. My personal investment in the project is related to the belief that the cultural sector requires the voices of the underrepresented to tell their stories so that inclusive decisions are made in our communal journey to equality.

Antique Chinese porcelain bowl applied with pottery and clay foreshore finds collected over time from the Thames at Rotherhithe. During lockdown I remembered my intention years ago to repair the bowl, and one night in a dream I knew this was the way to do it. The piece is unfinished; a work in progress.

Most of the people are assigned to work from home during the lockdown. This is the face that you made all the time in a work call. Even the connection is shit that you have already been waiting for more than 5 minutes for that person to pick up the call, you still have to keep your smiley face just in case the person you call pick up the phone in anytime so I am just wondering..how long do I have to wait?

Chalk on paper
“Little people going to a safe place”