Curators Sarah Dwyer and Laura Green in collaboration with Christine Johnston, an independent consultant, are delighted to announce ‘Saudade’, an exhibition featuring:

Amanda Couch, Sarah Dwyer, Doug Fishbone, Laura Green, Aisling Hedgecock, Tony Heywood, Graham Hudson, Thomas Hylander, Michael Lisle-Taylor, Ryan Mosley, Clare Parry, Clara S Rueprich, Claudia Sarnthein, David Spero, Raymond Taudin Chabot, Sally Underwood.

On Thursday 16th November, this dynamic group of both established and emerging artists appear together for the first time in ‘Saudade’. All of the artists have shown both nationally and internationally. The works include Painting, Sculpture, Photography, Drawing, Installation and Video. This exhibition explores the definition of the Portuguese word of ‘Saudade’, which lacks anything remotely close to an English equivalent.

Saudade is a Portuguese word for a feeling of longing for something that one is fond of, which is gone, but might return in a distant future. It often carries a fatalist tone and a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might really never return.

The English approximation is perhaps ‘nostalgia’ but this is normally the memory of a joyful past tinged with sadness for its impossible return. With ‘saudade’, there remains a forlorn hope that what has been lost might ultimately reappear, even if that eventuality is in fact an impossibility.

A working definition for Saudade would have to encompass several elements: a longing for a person, object or event that has gone but might return in the future, a yearning for something that may not or perhaps cannot exist, a turning away from the present towards the past or the future, and an unfocussed wistfulness mixed with melancholia. An alternative and perhaps more effective definition is offered by simply viewing the artwork in this exhibition

download exhibition text (.pdf)