terra at Cafe Sobar
Exhibition at Cafe Sobar. Nottingham.
Art Historian and Critic Reginald Crawford.
Coming to Cafe Sobar this Autumn is an exhibition of the fruits of my landscape: my most current works.
This exhibition marks a significant return to Nottingham for me. After a tour of possibilities, it became my first choice looking for a Degree course back then. I was completing my B/Tec Art & Design Course at Newcastle-Under-Lyme Art College and pretty fresh to the experience of living in the UK; it was a prestigious course and a thrilling prospect in an incredible city. I lived here for four years plus a small spell working after graduating. The Waverly Building at Nottingham Trent Polytechnic stands as much a landmark today as it did back then and was central to my time in the city.
My years there were a thrilling continuation of, and significant progression of my creative thinking and experimentation with the added opportunity of experiencing design in an industrial context. It was a momentous and unparalleled social opportunity: a great and heady mix; lectures, clubs, theatre, travel, exhibitions, politics. Woven into such a tumultuous mix came a family tragedy, the gravity of which along with my refusal to postpone the final year meant that ultimately, I left under a dark emotional cloud exacerbated by intoxication, and subsequent addiction as a destructive crutch. In my overwhelming desire to reestablish a creative zeal once again I clung to the maxim that in order to get through, and begin recovery I must first and unequivically desire to live, and relearn how to see. I carried the seeds of ideas for many barren years before I found my desire again in the place where I started my true creative journey, the fertile urbanscape of post-industrial Stoke-On-Trent and a cast of characters and collaborations that shaped, nurtured, enriched and put my passion for art and life back on the tracks.
Being able to Exhibit my personal work in collaboration with Cafe Sobar in support of recovery is an absolute catharsis - it is like coming home, from home. Here we are full circle.
