Property of a Gentleman
Majetek Ušlechtilého Muže, at the Svit Gallery in Prague, is a collaboration between Dirk Bell, Nathaniel Lee-Jones and Reginald Alan Westaway, deceased.
What’s particularly exciting to observe in the work presented for the show is a dialogue of sorts between the three men, despite Westaway having passed away in 2008. Westaway continues to influence Bell and Lee-Jones from beyond the grave, not just in terms of artwork they have produced for the show, but also sartorially. Lee-Jones has been wearing pieces of the exquisitely deconstructed and over-sewn, layered and shredded clothing from Westaway’s wardrobe for several years.
The Czech title of the show (which runs until from 30th August through to 12th October, 2013) translates as “Property of a Gentleman”. This refers to cataloguing descriptions by auction houses when referring to items from the estate of those deceased. The artists have removed the title from the cold, emotionless list and transferred it to this group show, exploring the evocativeness of the term in relation to the life of deceased contributor, Westaway (RAW), and Bell and Lee-Jones’ response to it.
The overwhelming feeling one experiences in the presence of these objects and works, where the venn diagram of the experiences of the three men overlaps, is a yearning for lost youth.
On display will be photographs, clothing and objects from the RAW archive as selected and curated by Lee-Jones. Bell will be contributing photography and drawings, featuring Lee-Jones as the model. Lee-Jones will be adding other esoteric, decorative, reflective objects, which he calls “crossover objects”. The use of mirrors is to “experience the reappearance of Westaway”, as Bell puts it.
A black and white photograph from a negative by Reginald Alan Westaway. During the 1970s, Westaway befriended a group of local youths, photographing them crabbing, diving and messing around on the Kent beach. He gave them nicknames, similar to those of his school friends, from his golden years as a star pupil at Wilson's Grammer School in Camberwell in the 1940s.
Black and white photograph of a newt by Reginald Alan Westaway. He bred and studied these water creatures, measuring them, drawing and painting them, recording tank temperatures daily.
A black and white photograph by Reginald Alan Westaway of boys on the diving platform in Herne Bay in the mid-70s. It's impossible not to draw parallels between these images and his nature studies of amphibians, especially the ruler on the side of the platform.
A late 19th century tobacco trader's coat originating from Karachi; ethnograhic object contributed by Lee-Jones, presented alongside Westaway's abstractly darned garments.
Reginald Alan Westaway's hand-darned blue jumper. Using shirting patches and wool, he worked the garment repeatedly, revealing a drawing of a running goose on its bottom left in blue wool.
Chalk sketch by Dirk Bell: "Tomorrow all your hard work will be for nothing."
Reginald Alan Westaway’s charcoal self-portrait on air raid instructions. Westaway constantly drew on any piece of waste paper with room to fit a sketch, even in the margins of letters and newspapers. Here, his glaring image is on upside down government-issue literature. As a youth Westaway spent WW2 in perjury as a Bevin Boy, mining tin.
Work in progress by Dirk Bell of seated figure. Using camera obscura to reinterpret Westaway's self-portraits, using Lee-Jones as the model.
A nude self-portrait of Reginald Alan Westaway. This image from the 1960s is the poster for Majetek Ušlechtilého Muže, part of a series of studies for drawings.