GRATITUDENOUSLY - Ann Churchill & J.M. Churchill

28 January – 5 March 2023

GRATITUDENOUSLY

Ann Churchill & J.M. Churchill

28 January – 5 March 2023

GRATITUDENOUSLY is an exhibition of works by J.M. Churchill and Ann Churchill organised by Elizabeth Neilson (Judith’s granddaughter and Ann’s daughter). It includes works by two generations of the same family who would not define themselves as artists, but who both used drawing as a tool to document their own inner journey. In their abstract diaristic drawings from the 1960s and 70s, they recorded life in a supernatural, unconscious manner. In Ann’s more recent large-scale scroll works, forms are repeated across expansive, abstracted comic strips. Ann is interested in how the term ‘doodle’ is derided or understood negatively: to her, doodles are a way to express the personal unconscious imagery that we all have within us.

J.M. CHURCHILL (b. 1916, Woollahra, Australia; d. 1998, London, UK), Judith did not exhibit her work during her lifetime. She worked as a delivery driver for Osram and was the first woman to receive beer money as a unionised driver. During the Second World War she drove ambulances, and later in life she worked as a preschool nursery assistant. She was married and had three children. She and her family lived in a rented flat above a newsagent off Kensington High Street, London, from the 1930s until her death in 1998. Judith’s practice was one of exploration and healing. She most often produced work when she was experiencing a mental health challenge.

ANN CHURCHILL (b. 1944, Oxford) is a self-taught maker whose output encompasses drawing, painting, knitting, batik and beading. Churchill views her practice as a meditative process that supports her own inner spiritual journey. Her work has been included in a Hayward Gallery Touring Exhibition: Not Without My Ghosts: The Artist As Medium, Drawing Room, London (2020); touring to: Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool (2021), Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea (2022), Millennium Gallery, Sheffield (2022). Her solo exhibitions include Ann Churchill: Works on Paper: 1974–78 (online), Richard Saltoun Gallery, London (2019) and Ann Churchill, GRANDINE, London (2018), organised in collaboration with Gaia Fugazza.

This exhibition has been brought together by Ann’s daughter and Judith’s granddaughter, Elizabeth Neilson, Director, Zabludowicz Collection and Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre.

A limited-edition Ann Churchill Colouring Book is available to pre-purchase for £12. Proceeds will be donated to Hospital Rooms, an arts and mental health charity that commissions extraordinary artworks for NHS mental health inpatient units across the UK.

Huge thanks to: Guy Oliver, Lindsey Mendick, Gemma Pharo, Finley Mist, Jacqui McIntosh, Hettie Judah, Chris Spear, Kitty, Annis Harrison, Matthew Darbyshire, Grace Spooner-Darbyshire, Clare Baker, Gilly Fox, Milo (Printer of Dreams), David Bebber, Dieter, Sascha, Telly.