Curated by Diana Ali at Art Center Caravel, ARTE.M Association, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal 2024 & Arthall, Victoria, Gozo, Malta 2025

Concept:

We are facing many barriers globally where our identities are being bruised, rejected, and turned away. This leaves a tension for bodies, thoughts, and circumstances to be accepted and co-exist. Artists have been invited to contest and question what it means to face barriers. Often our artworks have been declined from being shown and exhibited. This exhibition gives an opportunity for the art to migrate. There may not be a utopia, but there are ways of overcoming barriers. Imagine the artwork being personified. What would it say if it had freedom of movement, no immigration law, finding asylum and a sense of belonging without being displaced? A fantastic array of international artists come together in one space to question, confront and seek sanctuary through their artwork.

Exhibition information/Flyer:

Exhibition information/Flyer:

UPDATE 2025

In 2024, a majority of the work was detained by the Portuguese customs on the way to be exhibited in Madeira. The artwork did not have a freedom to roam. In 2025, the art hopes to confront crossings and overcome barriers by having the opportunity to be exhibited at Arthall, Malta.

Jane Walker (Sheffield, UK)

Paint Crashing Against Barriers

(Oil and stitching on canvas, 30x30cm)

Paint Crashing Against Barriers II

(Oil and stitching on canvas, 51x38cm)


The raised lines are made with stitches. I embroider lines, like a drawing into the raw canvas.The lines come from a city drawing. The paint is made in many layers, it is made like a traditional oil painting, and it takes a long time to work out the final composition. The marks on this piece deliberately crash into the raised barriers and splash. The stitches are a limit that cannot be changed the wet paint has to find a way round. These works are looking for a way of thinking about the barriers in the world both man made and natural. The colours are very flat there is no landscape space. This square piece originally had more threads over the top of the surface, but some of them have been removed, that is why there are lines on the side of the canvas.