Summer Nights at Kennington’s Durning Library is the new show by local artist Olympia Alsawi. Now based in London, Olympia grew up in Barcelona with Palestinian-Lebanese and Congolese roots. Her work reflects her experiences of racial and gender stereotypes.
There are twelve oil and mixed media works in the exhibition which showcase Olympia’s use of strong but muted colours and her confident technique. Her portraits of individuals, couples and groups celebrate diversity and radiate joy and pleasure. They are genuinely uplifting. Her subjects embrace their identity with pride and communicate a very strong sense of being at ease with who and where they are. These include people drawn from found images and from her own photographs of the people she encounters in her natural environment.
The show is about love and pleasure, but there is also a deeper message about freedom; the right to act and gather without fear – a freedom which many people across the world are denied.
This is not a big show, but is worth a few minutes of your time. Go and see it if you can.
Summer Nights runs until 31 October in the Durning Library, 167 Kennington Lane, SE11 4HF
Opening Hours
Monday 1 – 6pm
Tuesday and Friday 10 – 6pm
Wednesday 10 – 8pm
Saturday 9 – 5pm
The proceeds from the 12 pieces series (after necessary venue costs and payment fees) will support three humanitarian charities responding to urgent crises in Palestine, Sudan, and Congo.
