New Pieces at a show in The Rag Factory 09/09

Last weekend I exhibited two new watercolour paintings at The Rag factory off Brick lane and included an ongoing piece illustrating stories and symbols connected with my family history.

SWEDISH FAMILY 08/09

Photograph of my great
grandmother Ella
her father Gustav and her first son Johan
taken by her husband Emil about 1920,





These ongoing posts are writings, paintings and drawings from my recent trip to Sweden to meet and document my family. They offer a small window into the thoughts, stories and history of the family and some things each relative shared with me during my stay. All the portraits here are painted from life using watercolour on paper. This is apart from the black and white water colour copies of old photographs.



Lena Spindler my mother, sister of Janne and daughter of Stig Spindler and Britta Alin. Moved away from Sweden in the late 60's to France to seek out a different life away from the contraints of family. Being the younger sister left to live with her parents, she bore the brunt of her parents crumbling relationship and her father's alcoholism. I paint her in Ireland after my journey to Sweden where she built a small house with her second husband Peter. It is a spiritual home in many ways for her and where I was born. Exposed to the natural elements from sea, wind, rain around the house she grows a blossoming garden. I find her difficult to paint. She is notoriously so.. A chamelion like changability in her face, she says friends sometimes often don't recognise her in the street. An astrologer, interior designer (internal as well as external as as she likes to put it) Great with colours, balance and a wonderful, effortless cook.

Janne Spindler is my mother's brother. 12 years older then her. A carpenter and was a salesman. He has built his own houses, makes his own art work which is installed a his Gallery in the basement of his house outside Stockholm.. A storyteller, a funny man, entertainer, has a philosophy all his own.Janne's House which is both Bed and breakfast and has stables for his wife Boel's horses. The right side was a train guards house and Janne copied it and built a replica on the left.

Although I never properly met Stig his father, my grandfather, I could tell his vibrant sometimes troubled spirit flows strongly in the memory of his immediate family. Janne has many funny and sad stories to tell about his father Stig's exploits and misadventures. A charismatic character.. he could sell anything! He worked as travelling Salesman selling woman's underwear and in an ironic twist later in his life ended up selling manure. Janne's says his life would make a great film. He loved entertainment, drinking (alot..too much) eating out, he hosted cabaret evenings with friends.

Below his unusual basement Gallery with his art work and one of his sculptures 'Nature's spine'. Made from a found piece of pine, painted black and white. Seashells he found in ireland with different coloured nipples painted on them are stuck on round plywood boards framed with nautical rope. Painted swedish text across it reads 'Det ar Brost' (These are breasts) Typical Spindler humour but unusual it its form!

He tells me originally he wanted the gallery to be a casino with topless girls as croupiers...he said it was 50% joke - 50% reality. We both laughed about how it could bring in more vistors then there are now for his gallery!


Annette Spindler, Janne's daughter from his first marraige. My cousin. She has a daughter Frederica and a brother Goran who both invited me to dinner at her house.








Bobritta is 92. She was wife to Bosse Spindler (deceased), Stig's brother. Bobritta is Janne's aunt inlaw and is close to him. Once a vivacious and charismatic character. Another storyteller who loved to tell stories about the family and knew my great grandparents somewhat. She found a 'boyfriend' of similar age in the same care home when she was 90! He died a week before I came and as a result she was a changed woman from when I last met her at her 90th birthday. She used to make all her own clothes. She remembered me and spoke some english and while i experimented with my swedish. A photograph of her and her man lay in a plastic sleeve on her zimmerframe so that she could look at it often. She points to him and smiles. She is on good form today but doesn't speak too much. She likes unexpected guests.


Magnus is Bobritta's son and lives in Trolldalen an island in stockholm's archipeligo. He has three children with his wife Kirsten. He very kindly took me to see his mother at the care home and then invited me back to his house for Chinese with the family. I ask if can paint him after dinner. His twin daughters are very warm and talk about finishing high school, making jewery and heart throb actors. a

Magnus' father Bosse and uncle Stig used to sail together and he showed me a trophy they won for a sailing competition when they were young.

Johan Spindler is Neene Spindler's son. Neene is Magnus' brother











Olle Alin is my grandmother Britta's brother. I visited him and his partner Olle Britt. Olle is 94 but is still very engaged, full of ideas and creative energy.
While I painted we talked about many different things. Painting, travelling with his brother Frederik who was a butler on a millionaire's boat. Olle was employed by this man as a sculptor for his house in the Bahamas. He also used to sing in the Royal Swedish choir to the King and Queen of Sweden and in Finland. Olle draws, paints, plays piano, has built his own summer house, was a toom stone carver amongst others things. But his art seems always to be done as a way of life. He will illustrate memories of himself as a child and give them as a present to his grandchild. He tells me when he and his brother were young they found a revolver while digging under a tree at the bottom of his garden. His illustration is alive and full of the energy they must have felt at the time. In this way Olle records his memories His flat and his daughters places all bare pictures like this. Of day to day life or more delicate piantings of cityscapes or nature. In addidition to these he draws and paints fantasy pictures. Plucked straight from his imagination and completely his own creation. There is this honestly and simplicity of expression in his work that really inspires me.




Marianne Alin 1st daughter of Olle













Suzanne Alin,
2nd daughter of Olle.

Musings in Ireland

Rain and mist swath the view of the coastline from the cottage overlooking the atlantic sea here in west cork. A lot has happened over the last few weeks and this week in Ireland has given me time to reflect, gather myself for london life and see how to progress with this project. Two weeks ago my grandmother died and shortly after her son, my father, suffered from a serious heart problem. I broke off my stay in Sweden to return to london for Inge's funeral. Despite the emotional upheaval it caused for us and especially for my father, it gave me a further push to explore the family history. Someone said to me once that 'when an old person dies its like a library burning down'. This is more and more poignant to me as I gather small pieces of information here and there about the family through speaking with relatives. I think of some of my family who have died and the wealth of stories they must have carried with them to the grave. It saddens me. However it reaffirms my feeling that history is how the teller tells it. The stories remembered by others and how they interpret them are what make memories and myths live. A 'red thread' from one person to another. Is it possible to express this catalytic process visually? This is a key question i have in regards to how much or how little I document my impressions of the family. The possiblities are endless. I painted my grandma Inge's funeral from memory the next day on the train ride to Berlin.


It felt liberating to trust my own memory, to not worry if the details were absolutely correct. Does this matter? Do I make records from memory or pure observation? So far I have done both but always with the hope of capturing some truth whether emotional (how the person I am painting is feeling) or 'factual' (where or how they live)....
TLB