Players

Miranda Housden on her exhibition, Players

The exhibition is made up of 32 paintings of chess pieces, each one representing someone who’s had a significant impact  on my life – intended or unintended.

The abstraction of character, physicality and my own ever changing relationship and understanding of each person is expressed through symbols within an ancient game. The brushstrokes, scale, colour and position searches out their internal turmoil, outward appearance and connection to me.

The series started in lockdown, when I spent many months selecting characters, categorising, agonising over relationships and swapping people in and out of the game. As I listened to Bowie, trapped in my house, the chess board came alive and became my inner world. Each person assigned a line of his song Heroes, rather than the traditional parings of opponents and allies.

My lockdown heroes playing out my inner world.