Annabel Dover
15 January – 6 February 2011
Transition
London
E8
‘I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart’ Anne Frank
The 1944 film National Velvet, about a girl and her horse, was notable for introducing the world to a new young star – the 12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor. Whilst Taylor was embarking on her journey to superstardom another girl was cutting out magazine images of film stars and sticking them to the wall of a tiny, hidden apartment in occupied Amsterdam. National Velvet was released for Christmas 1944 – the last Christmas that Anne ever had.(Transition)
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Clipped edges and stars: These small paintings show me the clipped edges of images brought together by an active imagination. Objects and people treasured and remembered or glimpsed and marvelled at. Tiny port holes to a life outside of this room full of light, glamour and colour and at times a hazy past. These paintings, as objects themselves, are displayed as a collection perhaps gathered over long periods and arranged from the collectors changing position with in the room. Some high some low, some grouped.
- A view from a window: The projected film becomes a small window set into a blank wall, a table becomes a kitchen counter where I can lean and gaze out at the incidents taking place outside, from the everyday to the gently strange. These are glimpses of an outside slightly out of kilter with the inside.
‘Our little room looked very bare at first with nothing on the walls; but thanks to Daddy who had brought my film-star collection and picture postcards on beforehand, and with the aid of a paste pot and brush, I have transformed the walls into one gigantic picture. This makes it look much more cheerful…’The Diary of Anne Frank. (Transition)
- A still from Dovers film of ‘incidental events’
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Find an excellent interview with Annabel Dover by Laura Bushell HERE
