“A Restive Sojourner” by @mezelli_parker : Explore the vibrant culture and challenges of the GRT Community through Mezelli’s unique blend of performance art, photography, and more.
“Most Men Lead Lives of Quiet Desperation I, 2023” by @louiswdaviesart : Immerse yourself in Louis Wootton-Davies’ powerful exploration of masculinity, vulnerability, and the changing face of the working class.
About the artist, Louis Wootton-Davies:
Over the past couple of years my work has solely focused on masculinity and vulnerability in relation to myself and my family. I’ve previously explored this through stories about my grandfather, told to me biographically by my father and grandmother. I learned that my grandfather was born into a life of wealth. Despite this, he left education to carry out manual labour work; and after many different jobs, from insurance broker to sand quarry owner, he settled on a car breakers yard called ‘Salop Car Breakers LTD’. when he retired, he left the business to my father. In the following years my father would mourn the death of my grandfather (due to a glider plane crash) and see the slow decline of the family built business. With the commercialisation of the internet, there was soon little need for places like ‘Salop Car Breakers’, Sadly this meant the business could no longer stay open.
Due to my family's fluctuation of wealth I found myself being born into a working class environment, although this was the case my father denied my siblings and I the opportunity to be involved in the breakers yard, meaning i have missed out on the development of key, manual labour skills; my current project explores the working class identity, discovering where i fit into society and battling this feeling of ‘Class Dysmorphia’. I achieve this through sculpture, installation and painting.
My work aims to reach all demographics, I am often approached by viewers of my artwork with comments of reminiscence of their relatives or friends. I aim to shine a light on the working class, and the changing of its boundaries.
A working class person is no longer confined to the factory floor but now the floor of a call centre. The working class is no longer defined by the ‘uneducated’, but is now littered with university degrees and prospects. I am currently studying for my Masters in Fine Art at Oxford Brookes University and plan to continue growing my art career in the future.
About the artist, Mezelli Parker: My subject matter is the observation of educational apects within society about ethnic groups within the UK, specifically about my culture/ nomadic groups the GRT Community (Romany, Gypsy, Traveller).
I use various materials such as performance art, photography, dance, material, painting and video to involve a collective work. Around my practice to showcase that it is an ever-changing culture with unique trades and a strong family heritage, I focus my work on educating and addressing the Anti-gypsyism and racial views directed at thecommunity finding the rooted issue and creating a safe space to invoke conversations and learning.
