Rebecca Harper’s 'Between Two Worlds’ In The 2021 John Moores Painting Prize Exhibiti

Anima Mundi are pleased and proud to announce that Rebecca Harper’s ‘Between Two Worlds’ has been selected for the 2021 John Moores Painting Prize Exhibition currently taking place at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. (Details on how to vote for the visitors choice prize below).


ABOUT THE PAINTING :

Rebecca Harper’s 'Between Two Worlds’, on the surface, is a painting which depicts what was, when painted prior to the covid pandemic, the relatively prosaic act of visiting a cinema. As with many of Harper’s works, the seemingly ordinary scenario belies a complex state of duality, where coded within the frames, the painting reveals the artists diasporic heritage and consciousness, where belonging and settlement simultaneously rub shoulders with a sense of otherness and displacement, where one can feel out of place everywhere and not completely anywhere. 

Our initial view of the painting dramatically shifts when we learn that the scene depicted on the cinema screen is from a drone image taken from the West Bank territories in the Middle East, emphatically emphasising a paradox between location and dislocation. This expanded viewpoint of the painting frames expressions of ‘being’ from dual locations, and manifests itself within an unfolding, wondering, allegoric commentary on the locations that the artist inhabits and that of which inhabits her. 
 
In Harper’s words: "I see this work as a theatre in which to look compassionately at dealing with challenging and often contradictory positions within identity and belonging.”


TO VOTE FOR THE VISITORS CHOICE PRIZE: click here


ABOUT THE JOHN MOORES PAINTING PRIZE: 

The John Moores Painting Prize is the UK's most well-known painting competition, bringing together some of the best contemporary painting from across the UK to Liverpool.

First held in 1957, the competition was named after its founding sponsor Sir John Moores. The prize is open to all artists working with paint, who are aged 18 years or over and live or are professionally based in the UK. Showcasing some of the best new painting produced in Britain today, the prize has culminated in an exhibition held at the Walker Art Gallery every two years.

TO VIEW THE EXHIBITION VIRTUALLY : click here

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON REBECCA HARPER : click here