GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
Organic eye-openers
Drawing on elements such as seeds, pods and fruit stones, VERONICA RYAN'S works subtly reflect environmental and sociopolitical concerns, says Michal Boncza
NARRATIVES: (L to R) Sewing Seeds, Tidal
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger
ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
Veronica Ryan: Along a Spectrum
Spike Island, Bristol
VERONICA RYAN is an outsider by circumstance as much as by choice. Born in Montserrat, she came to Britain as a child as part of the Windrush exodus.
When at the Bath Academy of Art, Ryan was the only black student for the first two years of her course. In a new environment, she would be noticed first and foremost for the colour of her skin and this would cause her considerable anxiety.
As she does now, she understood then that separateness is both sovereignty and independence and has resolutely resisted being pigeonholed.
Similar stories
SIMON PARSONS applauds an artist who rescues and rehumanises stories of women, the victims of violence, from a feminist perspective
Despite an over-sentimental narrative, MICHAL BONCZA applauds an ambitious drama about the Chinese rescue of British POWs in WWII
FIONA O'CONNOR recommends a biography that is a beautiful achievement and could stand as a manifesto for the power of subtlety in art
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river