Female creativity is on display in a new exhibition in Tower Hamlets to celebrate Women’s History Month.
The 2024 Women’s Spring Open Exhibition at The Brady Arts and Community Centre in Hanbury Street showcases works in different mediums and styles from self portraits to acrylics and water colours.
Rachel Winter, 65, one of the artists in the exhibition, teaches printmaking at the Shadwell Idea Store. She told EastLondonLines: “Art [is] a wonderful way to express yourself and communicate feelings. I wanted to play a part in that visual language.”
“My screen print represents me re-evaluating myself. I’m seated and looking into the future, holding gardening tools, attempting to re-create my environment with a giant robin to assist or fight me for territory.”
Winter is optimistic about the future of female artistry. She explained to ELL: “I am so excited to think that this exhibition could be the first of many more. It feels like the start of something really empowering that allows women in our community to showcase their talents and have a voice. For me, Women’s History month is a chance to think about the great and inspirational women who have influenced our lives.”
Virginia Orr – ‘Victoria Park Nights, ‘Light in the Night’, ‘Tree of Light’, ‘Totem Nights’ (Giclee print Hahnemühle Photo Rag paper). Pic: Mia Soares 
Little Studio – ‘Pink’ 2020 (Collage). Pic: Mia Soares 
Kay Kante – ‘Bike Courier’ (Acrylic). Pic: Mia Soares 
Alison Clarke – ‘Still life goes on; still, life goes on; still life, goes on’ 2021 (Acrylic on Canvas). Pic: Mia Soares 
Isabella Morales Salis – Strange Artist The Only Thing That Stays: life 2023 (Acrylic paint). Pic: Mia Soares 
Judit Prieto – ‘Noah’s Ark with in Sumatra Rainforest’ Asian 2023 (Mixed media). Pic: Mia Soares 
Limma Ali – ‘Daydreaming at dusk’ 2023 (Digital Art). Pic: Mia Soares
Danièle Lamarche works to support charities and social enterprises in London and abroad with capacity building, feasibility studies and fundraising.
Lamarche appreciates that the centre is hosting this event. She said to ELL: “I’m pleased that this opening enable women to showcase their emerging creative talents. It allows all of us to share and unfold our and others stories.
“The image I chose to mark International Women’s Day is of Gary Arber, who is the third generation in his family to have run a print shop and stationers in Bow. His grandmother was a Suffragette and made his grandfather print leaflets. I decided to select a single image to put up to commemorate Women’s History Month.”
Lamarche looks back on her younger years in fondness where her love for photography begun: “I have been using a camera since my teens and the days when we had to develop film and print images in a darkroom – I miss the magic of watching the images begin to appear after processing, something a screen just doesn’t offer.”
Georgia Green, 28, works as an artist full-time and is specialising in sustainable printmaking. She explained how her life revolves around her imagination and art as her outlet for her ideas.
Green said to ELL: “I have always had an overactive imagination and I dream a lot. I was home-schooled as a child and I used to draw all the time.
“I went to Glasgow School of Art to study Painting and Printmaking as a degree, which has led me to the prints I make today. Although I haven’t painted since 2018, I am always drawn to printmaking techniques which reflect the liveliness and immediacy of painting.”
Green said that this event was a “wonderful experience” and allowed her and other women to appreciate art and their borough. She said: “This experince champions female artists in our local area.
“It gives female identifying artists space to contribute and build connections between their practice and the local area and an opportunity to exhibit work within a certain collective context where they are given priority.”
