“Flights of Fancy”: The new exhibition of Jackie Berridge

Her latest work provides refuge from recent happenings including the events in Ukraine and Gaza.

ΕΝΙΑ Gallery presents on Friday, 11th October 2024 the solo exhibition of Jackie Berridge titled “Flights of Fancy”.

Jackie Berridge’s paintings are a mash of inspiration from childhood memories, dreams, and traditional stories. She creates fantastical landscapes populated with beings and anthropomorphic creatures, telling tales of joy and sadness mixed with shades of darkness. Her latest work provides refuge from recent happenings including the events in Ukraine and Gaza. She is reminded of waking up from a bad dream or a recurring nightmare when the challenge is to change the ending. Through drawing and painting she explores ways of avoiding the horror by creating various dwellings offering sanctuary… and exploring the potential of transformation.

Berridge embraces a wide range of sources and references including textiles, popular culture, Indian miniatures and 1970’s animations. She also makes observational drawings and develops ideas in sketchbooks. Imagined landscapes carpeted with curious trees and dazzling flowers, provide the backdrop for tiny tales. These visual elements are inspired by Berridge’s trips to parks such as the Italian Giardini di Boboli (Florence) and the Arboretum, Nottingham.

Gorgeous colours and exquisite patterns of Indian miniatures have also played a part after a visit to Baroda, Gujarat in 2019. The cast are an assortment of hybrids, ornaments, toys and her own inventions. Some are ‘precious’ mementos, others are family figures; a few are gifted to find a role in the paintings. Objects may have a personal meaning whilst others reference traditional stories. The deer for example, frequently appear as guardians or may symbolise the circle of life.

Whilst the artist has an idea about the narratives, she leaves it for the viewer to make their own interpretations.

* An unrealistic idea or fantastic notion, a pipe dream. This idiom uses flight in the sense of “a soaring of the imagination,” a usage dating from the mid-1600s.