Ex Voto – a collaboration between Rachel Williams and Jude Montague Armstrong

Jude Montague Armstrong interviews her collaborator in art, Rachel Williams. They are exhibiting together at Electro Studios Project Space from 6–9 July.

Rachel Williams, printmaker and visual artist, long-term resident of Hastings, originally from New Zealand, you have had your studio at Electro Studios Project Space for some years. Can you tell me what you actually do in there and about your practice?

I absolutely adore my studio space at Electro it is a sanctuary. It’s been a revelation to me completely changing my work. There was a kind of revolt, if you like, from fairly abstract work, I won’t say calm exactly, nothing I do is very calm to something more edgy, much more satirical, much more figurative.

My practice is an exploration – always. I don’t feel any particular need to continue down one path for years and years. I don’t think I could manage it to be honest. I just feel the need always to be making new work, breaking new ground, making something that is interesting to me that is exciting to me that fulfils my need to create things with some faith that everything feeds into everything else. I am not that interested in conforming.

I use printmaking or “transference” as I call it in almost every single piece that I make there is something about the fear of pulling back a piece of paper or fabric to reveal a mirror image of what you’ve put down. But also the complexity of the marks that change when you transfer from one thing to another is of huge interest. It doesn’t really matter to me whether it is a Linocut, lithograph, screen print, etching or a monotype though I am very fond of a monotype.

What I do all day in there is get lost! In colour and process, errors and successes.

Your art work is inspired by ancient cultures, museum work, mummification, the artefacts of history and archaelogy. Tell me about what interests you about looking to the far past.

I think, for me, it is about its proximity to us – in fact its nearness in that not much has changed in many respects. Moments of everyday life are not that different now.

The thing about museums is that they contain the artefacts of the world in one place. Particularly in Britain where you see artefacts that have been appropriated by “collectors” shall we say. Coming from New Zealand there was the whole thing about a captured culture. When I was a child you used to be able to see shrunken heads in the local museum now that seems quite extraordinary. So I’m interested in the context between the object and building it’s housed in. The fundamental beauty of those objects and the way they are made more beautiful and somehow elevated by the incongruousness of their surroundings.

I have been working in and around the endangered animal arena for some time and the connection with museums and archaeology is a natural progression.

The title of your new exhibition is ‘Ex Voto’. Why did you choose this and what does it mean? You have a long relationship with rural Italy where I suppose the idea of ‘ex voto’ can be said to originate, certainly the term with its Latin roots. Do you think you connect with it in your long term visits to this land where ancient culture is very present in the modern?

Ex Voto, means “an offering, in accordance with a vow”.

It just expresses everything that we want to say with this exhibition that focuses on relics, grave goods, superstitions and a bit of Ancient culture but with a very heavy twist.

I lived for some time in Italy, which I think that is quite pertinent, really. The Italian language is not so very far from Latin, and they use still very many Latin expressions. There are very many habits, and superstitions that go way back to Roman cultures, little effigies which are put in the back of cupboards to bring good luck and ward off evil spirits. The Ancient culture is really quite close to the surface. Everywhere you go someone will say, that’s Roman…. People still dig up Roman relics and discover roman burials. In the village where we were living, a huge 2000 year old mosaic was found quite recently. Covered for all that time and its just there beneath the surface..

What can we expect to be surprised by or to appreciate in the show – without spoiling the surprise?!

I think you’ll be surprised at the sheer variety of ideas and pieces that can come out of two minds that run at a million miles an hour. It wont be just printmaking! We are both quite eclectic in our outlook. I think what you will find is you’ll be busy! There will be a lots see.

Are there any artists whose work you would like to mention as an influence.

That’s a tough one. It depends on the day you ask me. Today: Marino Marini, Archile Gorky, Elisabeth Frink, Picasso, Miro,

General influences are heavily in the cave paintings of Australia and Lascaux.

EX VOTO: two printmakers is at Electro Studios Project Space from 6–9 July 2023
The opening event is on 7 July 6–8.30

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