The Coming of Age

27 May to 12 June - open 11am to 6pm daily

(6pm ‘til late on 27th May - 11am to 3pm on 12 June)

‘Society cares about the individual only insofar as he is profitable. The young know this. Their anxiety as they enter upon social life matches the anguish of the old as they are excluded from it’

In Simone de Beauvoir's 1972 examination of old age, The Coming of Age, she asks what do the words elderly, old, and aged really mean? How are they used by society, and how is this a reflection of society's values and priorities?

The phrase ‘coming of age’ itself refers to a transition from childhood to adulthood and conjures up rites of passage, graduating children and teenagers into adulthood. Taking the title of this book as inspiration allows us to think of youth and old age, the journey to adulthood, and cross-generational views. For this group exhibition, seventeen artists speculate on the issues through a range of media; the work is celebratory, playful, poignant, emphatically address socio-political issues, or are drawn from personal experience, history, literature and myth. Rather than focusing only on practical, physical issues, this exhibition examines the existential, philosophical problem of how we are in the world at any age.

In The Coming of Age, Simone de Beauvoir sought greater understanding of our perception of elders, guiding us through a study that considered a thousand years and a variety of nations and cultures to provide a clear picture of the separation that the old must suffer and endure in many communities. For The Coming of Age 2022, artistic practice centres on self-actualisation and rituals of becoming. It involves an intuitive exploration of how individuals simultaneously grow in solitude and in communion with others.** The ages of artists in this exhibition represent almost every decade - from age twenty to seventy-six. All invite ‘introspective processes of getting to know oneself in relationship to our environment and in relation to others’.** It includes work which is interdisciplinary, site-responsive and collaborative; video and photography, installation and performance; drawing, textiles and ceramics.

This project has sought to present a diverse selection of artists bringing them together to examine what we might make and do (better) when we have knowledge of each other’s lives and skills, and how understanding can be generated through these relationships to inform a wider audience.

Curated by Bella Kerr & Amanda Roderick

This is a joint curatorial proposal by Amanda Roderick and Bella Kerr who, having worked together on a number of successful projects, are now collaborating in the context of Roderick & Jones, a platform for Artists to share practice and develop opportunities.

Amanda Roderick was Director of Mission Gallery, Swansea, from 2011-2019 and has extensive experience of the delivery of successful creative projects and working closely with artists.

Bella Kerr was a Lecturer in art and design, teaching at all levels, and Programme Director of the Foundation Art & Design course at Swansea School of Art. She has collaborated with many makers and organisations as part of her visual and curatorial practice.

**CLICK ABOVE IMAGE TO VIEW THE ONLINE CATALOGUE**

UPCOMING Performances

Meet the Artist

An opportunity to meet some of the Coming of Age exhibitors who will host informal talks, speak to visitors, or offer small-scale events to showcase their work in the context of the exhibition. Artists will be available in the space during the following periods:

Aliceson Carter : Sunday 29th June, 2pm-6pm + Sunday 5th June, 11am-6pm

Annie Wright : Friday 10th June, 2pm-6pm + Thursday 10th June, 2pm-6pm

Anzhelika Osieva : Saturday 11th June, 2pm-6pm + Tuesday 31st May, 2pm-6pm

Bella Kerr : Saturday 11th June, 11am-2.15pm + Thursday 9th June, 11am-2.15pm

Elizabeth Dymond : Saturday 4th June, 11am-2.15pm + Sunday 12th June, 11am - 3pm + Sunday 29th May, 11am-2.15pm + Wednesday 1st June, 11am-2.15pm

Hamish Gane : Tuesday 7th June, 11am-6pm

Keith Bayliss : Saturday 28th May, 11am-6pm

Kelvin Atmadibrata : Monday 30th May, 11am-6pm + Tuesday 31st May, 11am-2.15pm

Lillie Ruffels : Friday 10th June, 11am-2.15pm + Mon 6th June 11am-2pm + Wednesday 1st June, 2pm-6pm + Wednesday 8th June, 11am-2.15pm

Richard Bowers : Saturday 4th June, 2pm-6pm + Thursday 2nd June, 11am-2.15pm

Steph Mastoris : Wednesday 8th June, 2pm-6pm

contributing artists

Aliceson Carter

'Whilst my Dad has been ill my looking has changed. The everyday moments I recorded. speak of our predicament; analogies of living and breathing, time and motion, the beauty and the glitches'. Aliceson Carter

Aliceson started at Art Education in her late 30‘s studying BA Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, London graduating in 2009. She has recently joined the MFA course at Goldsmiths College, studying Part Time, whilst still making in her studio in Dorset.

Carter works with video, installation, printmaking and photography, often in a performative way. She utilises layers as a technique for building up an intensified vision or point; in video work impromptu collections of audio and image are brought together in editing, performative actions are usually spur of the moment and respond to what is happening at the time. Recently her work has been centred on the complexity and range of emotions that life throws up everyday, the different faces we choose to hide or show to others and our preconceptions and reading of another’s body, have been starting points for her work.

Annie Wright

'This performance is a love letter to my mother. She had mental health problems, and it was not until her funeral that positive memories of her came flooding back.' Annie Wright

I became interested in performance art and spoken word during my MA in Contemporary Art at Oxford Brookes (2013-2015). Through the creation of live performances which address positive and negative aspects of ageing, I am currently exploring if and how performance art can stimulate intergenerational understanding and empathy. These performances stem from personal experience.

Anzhelika Osieva & Pedro Andrade

'We have created a collaborative project engaging with the elderly, which explores the concept of being present'. Anzhelika Osieva & Pedro Andrade

Anzhelika Osieva is a Russian artist who currently resides in the UK. She is very interested in different cultures and working in collaboration with others. Through various media such asnphotography, collage, painting, video, and printmaking, she investigates the concept of being present as well as relational art. Anzhelika has lived and studied in Portugal before moving to the UK in 2017 to begin her studies at Gloucestershire University, where she is currently in her final year of a Fine Art Degree.

Pedro Andrade is a Portuguese artist currently based in the UK, having lived and studied in Portugal & Spain. Pedro is interested in collaboration, diversity/inclusion, art in mental health and arts education. Working within the care and education system, he has discovered a passion for how art can be crucial and transformative in everyone's life and the healing role that it plays. Interested in learning more about relational art and using social connections as a tool to create, Pedro has been exploring & investigating different ways to produce art with individuals of various ages, cultural backgrounds and ability.

Bella Kerr & Will Jones

'A selection of daily drawings from a shorter life and longer life'. Bella Kerr & Will Jones

Bella Kerr’s work is concerned with space, words and the power of objects. Drawing has provided continuity in a practice that has spanned installation, small-scale making, film, and set design, shown in a range of contexts from screenings in major London galleries, to museums, and regional galleries. I was a lecturer in art and design for 30 years, teaching at all levels from foundation to postgraduate.

Will Jones died this year at the age of 30 years. He studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute and then worked as technician in several art galleries while developing his own practice as an artist. This background informed his work, moving between analysis and creativity, while recent experience of living and working outside the system infused his work with personal experience, subjective feeling and his own embodied knowledge.

Elizabeth Dymond

'My aunt was 50 years older than us and so seemed ancient! She would say: “You’ll be old yourself one day my girl!” I think I probably am, although I’ll only admit to being older and not old'. Elizabeth Dymond

Elizabeth is a textile artist telling stories through her collections. Her collections consist of 2D pieces and interior design materials which include artist panels, table linen, soft furnishings, original abstract paintings and prints. Hand rendered methods are central to her practice and in this way human contact is incorporated into her work. She uses stitch, collage, paint, hand printing and digital manipulation in her pieces to add depth and meaning. She is currently making work in response to inherited domestic textiles.

Gabriella Tigoglu

'My current project discusses the complexity of life as a young parent, with focus on the mother'. Gabriella Tigoglu

I am a British-Turkish photographer currently based in Bath, whilst I complete my final year of the BA Photography degree at Bath Spa University. My practice is centred around introspection, I like to use documentary, portraiture and fine art photography as a tool to navigate the ups and downs of life around me. The topics my work cover include feminism, gender roles, disability, care & societal injustice. My current project discusses the complexity of life as a young parent, with focus on the mother.

Hamish Gane

'My current research explores epistemic injustice in relation to childhood and old age through notions of memory and melancholia'. Hamish Gane

Hamish Gane’s current project ‘Man Hands On’ reviews archive family photographs to explore unspoken age-related power dynamics and how these change over a lifetime, from a child ‘not heard’ and an adult ‘not listening’, to an older person ‘not listened to’. The title references the famous line from Philip Larkin’s poem ‘This Be the Verse’: “Man hands on misery to man” alluding to this hereditary occurrence and its cyclical nature. Past projects have depicted a staged reality, with each image creating a metaphysical space between fact and fiction, security and vulnerability, reality and myth. In 2013 he was awarded a PhD for his practice-based thesis entitled: Photography, Melancholy, Family: Spaces Beyond Representation.

Jaqueline Ennis-Cole

'The beauty, wisdom, and the expressive nature of the human hand, the aged hand. Sometimes wrinkled, at times fragile, always communicating something new'. Jacqueline Ennis Cole

Jacqueline Ennis-Cole is a neuro-diverse artist, essayist, and curator whose practice enquires into public health, trauma, social conflict, and the ecological environment. Her photographic work and art writings respond to the physicality of objects and the atmosphere of place. Her practice maps the spaces between authority and authorship and concealment and imagination.

Keith Bayliss

'Within images of figures carrying or lifting one another I depict the relationship between young artists and my own practice, and the parent-child relationship with my sons'. Keith Bayliss

Keith Bayliss’ work is figurative and expressive – his motif, the human figure situated within the landscape. He works in a variety of mediums: pencil and ink on paper, oil on canvas, relief printing and more recently, small mixed media sculptural constructions. His large scale works present life size figures often inhabiting undefined or unrecognisable places. His protagonists frequently interact, sometimes moving in opposite directions with a bird or animal as companion in this private, intimate, interplay within timeless space

Kelvin Atmadibrata

'I was captivated by the intergenerational, performative action of passing down pearl as inheritance in the 17thC. The formation of pearl, an inner defensive mechanism, approached as an accumulation of history, experience, trauma and relationship, packaged through nurture and care, passed from the grown up to the young'. Kelvin Atmadibrata

Kelvin Atmadibrata (b.1988, Jakarta, Indonesia) recruits superpowers awakened by puberty and adolescent fantasy. Equipped by shōnen characters, kōhai hierarchy and macho ero-kawaii, he often personifies power and strength into partially canon and fan fiction antiheroes to contest the masculine meta and erotica in Southeast Asia. He works primarily with performances, often accompanied by and translated into drawings, mixed media collages and objects compiled as installations. Approached as bricolages, Kelvin translates narratives and recreates personifications based on RPGs (Role-playing video games) theories and pop mythologies.

Lillie Ruffels

'Ageing is a very personal experience, whether you embrace it, or struggle with change. It affects how we present, how we treat others, and ourselves'. Lillie Ruffels

I’m a 20 year old student, currently studying a BA in Creative Arts at Bath Spa University - specialising in Mixed media textiles and Ceramic design. I love playing around with abstraction in my artwork. Recently I’ve been using the Japanese technique of ‘Nerikomi’ which involves adding coloured clays into a body of clay to create fun abstract pattern.

Mez Kerr Jones

'Fragments of reoccurring mindscapes we visit, perhaps unchanged since childhood'. Mez Kerr Jones

Mez's practice is interdisciplinary and site-specific; involving collaborations, material explorations, questions, curiosity, installation work, writing, performance, and ceramics. Her work focuses on the connections between power and spatiality, profit and justice, and employing art as a form of societal critique. Research around personal and communal feeling, representation and geographical identity lead to work that seeks to understand the relationships formed between a place and its inhabitants. Working site-responsively, her works consider not only place, but also social and political context, where questions and ideas are articulated through actions and materials. Mez studied Sculpture & Environmental Art at the Glasgow School of Art and is now based in South London, where she works at Kingston School of Art as a ceramics technician and lecturer on the Foundation Art & Design Course.

Richard Bowers

'My mother experienced a prolonged physical deterioration and erosion of memory prior to her death. This work takes frozen memories, as attached to photographs and personal effects, and inscribes new memories that conflict with the realities of the past'. Richard Bowers

I am an artist based in South Wales whose primary medium is sound, often combined with video elements and performers. I programme software tools to realise my works and regard the designing of computer programmes as 'composition' in the sense implied by musicians. I sometimes collaborate with musicians and performers both as co-creators and in order to realise my own works. I see the process of making work as ongoing in the sense that the work is never complete: when a work is shown to the public it is simply a node in its production where the elements have coalesced into something presentable. The elegance of regarding creativity in this way is that the materials get nurtured into new works - forming new coalescences from the same core materials.

Steph Mastoris

'Six typographic works are presented as two triptychs. One borrows from Shakespeare’s account of the Seven Ages of Man. The other explores some popular phrases associated with ageing'. Steph Mastoris

Steph Mastoris is a typographic artist, based in Swansea. He works mainly with traditional metal and wood type, set and printed by hand. All of his work celebrates the power and elegance of letter and word forms. He is currently interested in exploring the mutability and plurality of meaning in everyday language.

Suze Adams

‘Furniture and found objects act as stand-ins for the body, expressions of physical and psychological experience. Age is coming upon me but maybe a new future is not something to be feared?' Suze Adams

Suze Adams is an artist and writer based in the UK. She works out of her studio in Bristol and regularly exhibits work nationally and internationally. Her work sits between fact and fiction, public and private, and presents largely in installation format, combining photographs, drawings, text and objects. Informed by post-structural and feminist philosophies, her artworks are tempered by everyday experience of the world where abstract ideas are grounded in the commonplace (eg coffee cups, street scenes, plants). The metaphysical meets the mundane in the work of Suze Adams, poetry can be found in the familiar.