“Child’s Play” Opening Night at The Norman Rea Gallery

When first hearing of the Norman Rea Gallery’s 2024/25 programme, I was instantly inclined to discover more. Those close to me may recognise my appreciation for the “childlike”, my love of expressive art, and the comforting (or unsettling) understanding that at every point in our adult lives, we carry our childhood self within. I knew that this was an exhibition I needed to see. 

Upon arrival, the senses were greeted with playful primary colours and a nostalgic harmony of mellow jazz and uplifting beats, chosen by DJ Ben Chin, setting the scene for a reflective evening of love and longing. The Ethiopian rooted genre, Tezeta, directly translates in English to ‘nostalgia’, and was described as able to evoke ‘childlike sensibilities’ within its listeners. The gallery also curated a playlist to accompany the themes explored, to engage ‘beyond the gallery’s walls’ - a detail which I particularly admired. In the centre of the room stood a block covered in paper and crayons, encouraging the visitors to be interactive and doodle freely – an indulgence not often given past childhood.

The mixture of mediums heavily resonated with the childhood experience; the use of unconventional material, such as sheep’s wool in Emilia Evans-Munton’s (She/Her) ‘The Dreams of Horses’, a whimsical tribute to childhood wonders in the form of a cloud-like sculpture of a carousel. ‘Stick by Stick’ - a beautifully detailed assemblage of lollipop sticks, personalised floor plan laser cuts and acrylic paint by Molly McNeany (She/Her) explored the ‘cyclical nature of childhood play and crafting’, with glowing candles inside each structure which to me emphasised the warmth of a childhood home. In harmony with the lighting, a stack of brightly coloured building blocks curved round one corner of the room, one stack noticeably taller than the other in a gradient fashion, which somehow made me think of the toppling of dominos, a simple yet vivid memory of childhood, balance and risk. 

On the walls were various experimental pieces using lightboxes, performative moving images, acrylic paint, pencil, and even the unusual combination of photography and embroidery. Standing and admiring Diane Meyer’s (She/Her) ‘Time Spent That Might Otherwise Be Forgotten’ was perhaps the most reflective part of the opening night for me. The reproductions of hand sewn archival ink jet prints were based on personal family photographs, but blurred out with embroidery to represent pixels where faces should be. It is an uneasy feeling to see something so rooted within us in physical form; false memories, influenced ideas, faces of the past that don’t make full images anymore.

Down the main stretch of the gallery hung countless origami boats and cranes, a gentle reminder of a mobile above a baby’s crib, or a time where using paper and careful hands was the epitome of creativity. To the left were more artworks that surprised me. The clay and acrylic fairy specimens by Ev Hughes (They/She/Her) stood out, combining eeriness and morbidity with my own raw childhood interest, and for a moment I felt the little girl inside me say “Yes! You’ve finally seen one! How did they catch it?”. Another moment of unease came from Matilda Philips’ (she/her) ‘Baby Blues’ using oil and acrylic paint to seemingly depict a mother and baby in its first few years, where the child is present but does not consciously understand or process its experiences. The perspective we see is adulthood, where they remember existing, but not the context in which they existed, which encourages the viewer to look internally at their own extent of memory. 

The simple message of the programme is to disprove the negative perception that modern art is simply child’s play; taking inspiration from British artist Susie Hodge, whose book ‘Why Your Five-Year Old Could Not Have Done That: Modern Art Explained’ (2012) deconstructs such criticisms and invites the reader to change their opinion. 

The exhibition left me in a state of deep reflection of my own childhood, and with a critical eye, it can be confirmed that the technical work, layering, detail and feeling put into each installation and piece for ‘Child’s Play’ opening night tells me everything I need to know. 

No, a five-year-old could not have done that.