October 2018
Recent Exhibition of Eugene's work
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Eugene's Christmas Card image, 2016
NOT YET SAFE
Refugees, migrants, asylum seekers; those hoards we see in the news. It is me, is it not, one of those fleeing the past and pressing on to hopeful safety; the nightmare in sleep, but never real until something of it is felt in what is called ‘empathy’, as I see the pictures. Thus the meetings of the Refugee Support Group came about spontaneously. People, strangers to each other, with one necessity: help must be offered. The surprising variety of abilities and backgrounds of those present, over a short period, resolved itself into practical action.
Then a day in April in Brecon took place, a day of welcome and sharing. For my part, did ART seem an appropriate offering? But having known these visitors only as distant news items, I wanted the experience of proximity. What happens face to face, between us, we strangers? When the request “Can I draw you?” was uttered, the response was one of openness. It meant surely that the sitter was of interest, worth the trouble of the acute attention and time needed to achieve a portrait. A connection was made,a connection mostly without language, quiet, without nervousness, and an image of a unique individual. Not, as newspapers might insist “us and them”. No, two people facing each other. One having lost mostly everything, the other seeming to have all he needed. One young man said “Can I draw you?” So in silence we drew each other. He completed a very accomplished drawing, expressing more than lineaments. Then there was Abdul, a young Bedouin man from Sudan, who had found his family dead after a bombing raid. He now was fashioning, with the provided clay, the animals he had been used to as family livestock: camels, goats, ponies. He was happy working with his fingers making models and giving them to the children about him. He, with the formerly sad face, now in touch, enjoying a brief community.
It was a moving day, and miles away from quotas of bodies, from politics, from bureaucracy, from hostility. What had been a hope in many evenings of planning, began to produce fruit.
Recent Portraits....
Photo: Annabel Judson
1st August 2015 - The launch of Eugene's new book OH HAPPY HAY!
with an exhibition of drawings from the book, and book signing by Eugene at the Private View...
- POSTCARDS showing drawings of Hay Castle are on sale here and in Hay.
- PRINTS of Eugene's work are now available to order. Please contact us.
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In March 2013 Eugene travelled with friends to Verona to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday. He's since then been working on a series of paintings of landscapes, architecture and street scenes from this and other travels in Italy.
Currently he's also working on distilling down a selection of his work over the years, and items from his journals, into a new book about his experiences within the creative life.
