Jerusalem-Brexit
2019
"Presumably, the most poignant work in the exhibition, Susan Stockwell’s Jerusalem-Br-Exit visualises a feeling of frustration and deflation; presenting a UK map coming loose at its Southern border, that faces the European Union."
Jerusalem-Br-Exit is knitted with green wool and takes it's title from the William Blake poem & hymn Jerusalem, which talks of England's green and pleasant land. Yet in this piece the bottom part of England flacidly drops away into the sea, commenting on the UK's choice to leave the European Union and the nationalistic overtones and the inevitable and far reaching consequences of this decision. As Jonathan Jones puts it in a review of the work in the Guardian
“Scotland looks proper and correct, yet Brexit-voting England and Wales are collapsing in a shapeless mess. Brexit is not strengthening national identity in this acidic knit but melting this sceptred isle……..“
Jerusalem-Br-Exit was shown in the group exhibition, Should I Stay or Should I Go? at Patrick Heide Contemporary Art. The exhibition examined the broader questions resulting from the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, and in particular examined notions surrounding inclusion and exclusion, migration and memory, and more profoundly of home and belonging. The exhibition attempted to reveal the hidden layers and undercurrents that led to Brexit.
Featuring the diverse work of fifteen artists including, Michał Iwanowski, David Connearn, Sophie Bouvier Ausländer and Eric Cruikshank, Stefana McClure and Mike Meiré..............
Exhibitions:
Should I Stay or Should I Go? Patrick Heide Contemporary Art, London 2019
Politics in Art Museum of Contemporary Art (MOKA) Krakow, Poland 2022
Reviews:
Guardian Review Painted into a corner....British art respons to the folly of brexit by Johathan Jones 2019
Widewalls How are Contemporary Artists Treating Brexit 2019
