Rees Wilson in Conversation with Artist, Nancy Cadogan
Nancy Cadogan in her studio.
With bold colours injected into calm moments, Nancy Cadogan’s paintings encourage reflection and contemplation. Her most recent exhibition Gusto, shown at the Keats Shelley House Museum in Rome, was directly inspired by the literature of John Keats and created in conjunction with the bicentennial of his death. The exhibition became even more powerful when the COVID-19 pandemic caused an international lockdown - while Cadogan quarantined in her studio in Northamptonshire creating these works, she reflected on Keats’ own quarantine 200 years earlier. Sick with tuberculosis, Keats spent the last four months of his life locked in what is now the Keats Shelley House Museum.
MADE IN BED contributor Rees Wilson interviewed Nancy Cadogan to discuss her artistic influences, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Gusto exhibition and her future projects.
Rees Wilson: What has inspired the works behind this exhibition?
Nancy Cadogan: Much of my painting is based around cultural history and literature and Gusto was commissioned to help celebrate the bicentennial of Keats’ death. In 2017, I presented an exhibition called Still Reading. The exhibition was all about literature and the paintings were highly observed. I painted Keats in one of those paintings, and a trustee of the Keats Shelley House Museum happened to see it. I’ve always painted about literature and poetry, and I had already read a lot of Keats at that point. When we went into lockdown, the themes of the show changed direction and it became apparent that our current world situation mirrored that of Keats’ 200 years earlier.
Dreaming of Rome I, 2020.
RW: How important is it, to you, that this exhibition is being shown at the Keats Shelley House Museum in the centre of Rome?
NC: The location is completely integral to this body of work because the works were made with the space specifically in mind. While the world around us has changed, the view from Keats’ bedroom is the same landscape that exists today. It was a lifelong dream to show in such a prestigious, intimate Museum. Not only is it my first institutional show but Italy means the world to me. My family has a deep connection to the country, and it was an honour [to exhibit] here.
The Light is Outside III, 2020.
RW: How did COVID-19 influence this exhibition?
NC: It struck me that the Gusto show was made during [a] state of the world [that] paralleled with Keats’ last few months in Rome in an extraordinary way. There is an overwhelming sensation at the Keats Shelley House of being in Keats’ bedroom, overlooking the Spanish steps, and imagining his time there in quarantine. For the Gusto show, the paintings are about communing with the emotions he must have been going through in this house, knowing his life was going to end at such a young age. He was locked away in his room, physically constrained in bed, extremely weak but with a clear, vivid mind, which is similar to our experiences this past year. While I was making this show in lockdown, I was thinking of him being in lockdown 200 years before in this house. It was completely extraordinary.
Cadogan and her team carry paintings for Gusto down the Spanish Steps, October 2020.
RW: How have you seen your work evolve in the last few years?
NC: Over the past few years my work has evolved from observational to highly imagined works. I have also been playing with scale, working on much larger paintings, which was completely transformative to my practice. Elements of symbolism appeared, displaying a rhythm to my work and whilst not narrative, the viewer was left to interpret the stories I was presenting.
More recently, I have felt much more confident in my practice and the stories I’m hoping to convey are becoming more clear and vivid. Since my first shows in Madison Avenue NYC in 2004 and 2005, my work has developed dramatically.
Back to Books, 2020.
RW: In what ways do you see the opportunity for the public to resonate and relate to your work?
NC: The viewer's response is an amazing thing, isn't it? It's the most affirming and wonderful moment if you’ve devoted your life to making work, to think that in any way somebody else can gain pleasure. What I hope is that people are very peaceful when they view my work. I'm really interested by the idea that my paintings can have a quiet, benign, continuous, timeless but ultimately beneficial, soulful and promising relationship with the viewer. My works are quiet paintings, and they reveal themselves slowly.
Thank you, Nancy.
Image courtesy of Nancy Cadogan.
Although the Gusto show ends on 31 May, Cadogan has exciting plans for the near future, including a solo show in Brussels with The Obsidian Gallery in 2022. Before then, she will feature in a collaboration with The Cadogan Hotel during Frieze London in October 2021 and a group show, Her Dark Materials, launching in London on 22 June 2021.
Be sure to visit Nancy Cadogan’s website and follow @nancy_cadogan_art for more information.
Rees Wilson,
Contributor, MADE IN BED