RILIEVO EXHIBITION
by Robin & Rosie
The Exhibition in Harris-Manchester College marked a triumph of organisation and subtle persuasion. We took down the portraits of bishops and filled the college with contemporary prints by Ian Phillips, Laura Boswell and Susan Wheeler, as well as by Rosie and me. Everyone's work was mixed in together. My aim was to to achieve an equality of impact by distributing the pictures as they best spoke to each other and fitted with the structure of the college. Throughout the exhibition one or other of us was always demonstrating our printmaking, linocutting or frame-making. Laura's husband, Ben contributed a set of huge display panels that between us we constructed at the University Sawmill in Wytham and transported to college courtesy of Martin Fairfax-Cholmeley and his old VW van. At some point in the past hundred years, the old picture hanging system in college had been removed. All the old metal bars from which pictures formerly had hung at some point became recycled into tanks or guns, or were removed in some kind of modernization programme. With much frantic, last minute and midnight activity Rosie and I managed to reinstall the old hanging system, and so effectively bring the main quad back into use as a potential art space.
During the exhibition, we encouraged visitors to have a go at printing from some of our blocks, and Ian carved a vast single-block lino of flying geese, which he then proceeded to print by hand in a marathon of hard physical exercise. Thanks go to all members of the College for their support and help in this exhibition, in particular to the Principal Dr Ralph Waller, The Librarian-Fellow Susan Killoran and our two college maintenance gents without whose ladders and help we would not have been able to run the exhibition.
