I first discovered Kintsugi in Japan

Kintsugi is the Japanese practice of repairing broken pottery with gold, not to hide the crack but to honour it. The break becomes part of the object's history, and often its most beautiful part. I first discovered it in Japan in my early twenties, and it's stayed with me ever since.

This October, it becomes a set of paintings.

My work is going into Abreast, a group exhibition at Tinker Gallery in Ilkley, running throughout October to mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Jo from the gallery gave the show its name, and I love it. The exhibition brings together artists working across painting, photography, ceramics, and textiles, all circling the same question, what does it mean to live in a body that has changed.

For the full details on the exhibition, sales, and the collection, see my earlier post.

For me, that question became two paintings in particular. One is of Jo, who owns Tinker Gallery and has had a mastectomy. The other is a homage to my sister Sam, who I lost to breast cancer. Painting her was one of the hardest and most tender things I've done.

Alongside them sits a small trilogy, three pieces that speak to the scars we carry, the ones from surgery that are visible, and the ones that live in the body without ever showing on the surface. Some scars we can see. Others we just feel.

The gold in this work isn't decoration. It traces the places where something broke and something else grew. I didn't want it to rush toward the positive, and I didn't want it to sit in the damage either. It had to hold both at once, the break and the beauty, together.

Abreast opens with a private view on Friday 2nd October, 6 to 8pm, and then runs Thursday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm, throughout October. Twenty five percent of sales go toward the breast cancer cause the show is raising awareness for.

See more of my work, or find out about current and upcoming shows, on my website.

Follow along at #AbreastExhibition

I'd love to see you there.

Roberta xx