Life changing sickness is a commonality that connects many artists' otherwise disparate practices across decades, genres and lifetimes. Deserters asks, ‘What is the relationship between illness and making? ‘Good health’ has obvious merit – but what about the value of ‘ill health’?’

 

Society draws lines between the healthy and the sick; rich and poor; good and bad. Artists have often - in reality and the popular imagination - occupied the fault line between these definitions - while illness, a common theme in art and literature, is often a symbol of alienation. This exhibition brings together the work of 24 artists; the mix reveals a tender delicacy of line, colour and form, combined with some chaos. Clarity of statement is combined with elements that capture confusion - the scattered, spilling out, fluid nature of ill health and the way it takes over the body, and the whole exhaustive nature of illness and the need to find rest and recalibrate. The themes and modes that have emerged can be broadly described as: abstraction, repetition and pattern making; nature and healing; lying down while the world stands up; the body – whole and in parts; text and form filling.

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Deserters has grown from conversations with artists who took part in our previous exhibitions for Fringe Arts Bath, The Coming of Age and Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?, and with Caroline Humphreys, who is co-curating Deserters with Bella Kerr, alongside Amanda Roderick who is creating its online presence. The curatorial team hope to further develop the conversation with the artists through the digital catalogue as a ‘long life’ version of the exhibition.