Transience, Not Permanence is Key: ‘Shifting Perspectives’ and ‘Charmaine Watkiss: The Wisdom Tree’ at Leeds Art Gallery 

Upon revisiting Leeds for what will be my final year as an undergraduate student, I thought I would give Leeds Art Gallery’s newest exhibitions a go. A friend, and fellow Gryphon contributor, had recommended we go see ‘Shifting Perspectives’, one of the gallery’s summer shows which focuses on revising the mainstay of chronicled artistic (mis)representation. 

We began in the White Gallery with the sections Allegories and The ‘Others’ as Enemies which contain a fantastic array of the diasporic revisionism Leeds Art Gallery wants to lay down, with plenty of probing discourse, addressing the prominent elephant (tiger) in the room – Edward Armitage’s 1858 ‘Retribution’. 

Interestingly, the Male Gaze section of ‘Shifting Perspectives’ is veiled by a translucent piece of fabric, a barrier which the jubilant and perhaps more infantile visitors who had been taken there that day decided was no obstacle whatsoever for their gaze. However, the conversational discursive element of the exhibit, which in my mind is more ephemeral by nature, I found to be most interesting in this portion.

A few tinier female nudes, especially from Eric Gill with his wood engraving, ‘The Chinese Maidservant’ invited speculation in the conversational feature of the exhibit in the form of quotes from Leeds communities and visitor comments. The familiar territory of discourse on separation of art and artist has come up before, and this conversational aspect initially felt like another portion of the frequented debate. But really, this is not a Guardian or academic speaking on it, it was people who visit Leeds Art Gallery; often from after school groups, youth, and community groups of African, Caribbean, and Asian heritage, providing a poignant new set of perspectives. I appreciated the discussion in its many eclectic demographical forms; this appreciation was enhanced by the changing nature of the displays with new comments often added.

Gill’s piece appeared so small and yet it was incredibly interesting to unpack the orientalist exoticisation densely within. An odalisque by Matisse accompanies this section again adding to the texture of the exhibit by providing a wider geographical and chronological scale of this type of male gaze. Discussion became part of the gallery; the importance of the perspectives in ‘Shifting Perspectives’ more and more clear. 

The following and concluding part to the Male Gaze section is Lesley Sanderson’s reproduced laser copy piece, providing a needed respite from the earlier orientalist works. With her fragmented pencil drawn disembodied work, she draws attention away from the earlier more nefarious attempts to encase the biologically female body, highlighting a brilliant smile… or five. 

We dip out now, and past the Henry Moore lecture theatre and the Ziff gallery looms even larger, with Edward Armitage’s ‘Retribution’ door-framed sitting cynosure. Despite the colonialist behemoth, the ‘Charmaine Watkiss: The Wisdom’ exhibition (her first solo exhibition in a public gallery) calls from inside the Small Lyons Gallery.

The stark contrast between the Ziff permanent display and ‘The Wisdom Tree’ is evident. While Watkiss’ beautiful larger scale drawings make me think in scale of New Jersey Bisa Butler’s expansive and colourful quilts, the smaller ones on the right as you come in are equally worth your time. 

The thing that struck me about Watkiss’ works was the noticeable impermanence is present in these works; the liminality of the portraits is noticeably greatly indebted to the space they are housed. With Watkiss’ ‘They Didn’t Come to Stay’ and ‘Facing the Wind’, both their titles impart the artworks with a lack of a permanence characteristic of a fleeting natural encounter. 

Overt comparison to the Classical Three Graces is made in the description, however these ‘Graces’ are instead imbued with the Colour Bar on Immigration, industrial towers, and many stages of Black British diasporic life. Watkiss embraces this transitory invocation through the graphite powder on Fabriano paper, itself slightly smudged. Combined with the lighter white of the background against the wallpaper makes these women come to life. You are surrounded by what Watkiss wishes to present. Someone succinctly summarised the experience alongside me – “this is a bright room, innit?” For me, this perfectly summed up the illuminative powers of curation and natural lighting. Later the Ziff gallery felt comparatively excessively ornate in contrast. Watkiss’ lack of frame again shows what gets showcased, and what does not.

Further peeking into the Lyons Galleries and back into the ‘Shifting Perspectives’ exhibition local histories are expounded on, with the United Caribbean Association in Leeds getting a mention. This reflected ‘Shifting Perspectives’s earlier exposition of the militancy and activism in Chapeltown, demonstrating and centring the history of communities of the Global Majority in Leeds.  

Into the permanent collection in the Ziff, and despite it not featuring people of African, Caribbean or Asian heritage, Lady Elizabeth Butler’s ‘Scotland for Ever!’ is the kind of artwork that could have featured in the first gallery of ‘Shifting Perspectives’. The putting down of rebellion and squashing the supposed ‘Other’ is contrasted by the earlier United Caribbean Association work, allowed to become engulfed in flames. 

The same revision worked for Leeds local artist, John Atkinson Grimshaw, himself a long-time contributor to Leeds Art Gallery. Through his Leeds Bridge, 1880 painting commemorating the Industrial Revolution in the North (an industry that helped to generate income for Leeds Art Gallery) we can compare this with Charmaine Watkiss’  testament to the Windrush generation that paved a later industrial and socio-economic age for the so-called ‘modernisation of Britain’. 

Perhaps all these works need to be permanently viewed in conjunction. Or perhaps the startling brevity of Watkiss’ work and ‘Shifting Perspectives’ illumination of alternative histories in general needs more recognition. There’s a lot of work to be done (which Leeds Art Gallery acknowledges), but one aspect of transience must not be permanent. That is, institutional amnesia cannot become a mainstay. 

Image Credit: Installation view of ‘Shifting Perspectives’ (Photo by Simon Warner).