She makes the insignificant, fragile matter

By Tarini Pilapitiya

From the rusted heavy metal chain over the head of a kitten as it peers at us with round, watery cerulean blue eyes; the sparrows perched on the rafter and the lamb frolicking, the delicate character illustrations seem straight out of Beatrix Potter but juxtaposed with thought provoking material they leave the onlooker mesmerised.

“If One Thing Matters” is a simple title for UK artist Elizabeth Porter’s oil paintings on gold leaf circular panels at the Barefoot Gallery (on until October 22). Daintily placed on gold leaf and Palladium leaf paint surfaces, our eyes are immediately drawn past the metallic lustre of the rich gold and silvery-white metal like surfaces of the circular canvases to the ethereal creatures that entwine themselves around the rusted manmade instruments.

Whether it’s the graceful arc of the butterfly wings as they flock around plastic bottles, or the soulful eyes of the Loris as it rests atop the barrel of a shotgun, a tiny blue bird impartially perched on barbed wire these paintings will leave you standing still in front of them reevaluating what we may deem insignificant - the fragile, overlooked and somewhat ignored.

“If One Thing Matters” is Elizabeth’s first solo exhibition in Colombo - she previously had a joint exhibition “Unhurried Groundswell” with her partner Alex Stewart and fellow artists Muhannad Cader and Mariah Lookman at Barefoot in February 2013.

Born in 1958 in the UK Midlands, an area she describes as the “middle of nowhere”, Elizabeth remembers as a child lying flat on the stone bridge gazing up at the planes from the nearby Royal Air Force stations flying overhead “it would be like you could touch them”.

Having loved animals all her life Elizabeth remembers at the age of 5 or 6 adamantly wanting her own horse. Living in the countryside she recalls walking along the roof and fences aged 6 or 7 years in the night with the farm cats who she describes as “impeccable teachers”.

“Living in the city, surrounded by concrete and glass, metal and tarmac, bricks and cement we like to think that we live in an exclusive domain,” she states, “the other world we call nature; organic, natural, is somehow separate from our own.” Her use of insects and birds is to pinpoint how such tiny creatures find means and ways into the rifts and spaces we overlook as a society “adapting themselves to our carefully constructed totality,” she says.

Elizabeth is accustomed to doing things out of the ordinary. Having received her BA at Oxford University at the age of 48, she recalls her experience as “amazing!” but “in some ways very lonely” however, not regretting a minute of the experience as she learned so much. She went on to do her MA at the Royal College of Art, London.

Apart from painting and drawing, Elizabeth also enjoys sculpting. Some of her sculpting projects are what she describes as “useless guns” which she sewed out of felt fabrics and tea leaves. Her creations also include a Holy Leaf Grenade and even a bamboo revolver which she made on her travels. The tea leaves gun which she made and exhibited here in Sri Lanka on one of her many visits was to be a metaphor of the identity of Asian history “tea and war” Elizabeth adds.

One day Elizabeth hopes to return to Sri Lanka and gather a group of women to sew a “huge gun made out of leaves”. For Elizabeth the use of a “thread and needle give a “woman’s response” to art and warfare.

The exhibition will be on at the Barefoot Gallery until October 22 at from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays.