Paintings by one of the UK’s most innovative artists
Jamie Hewlett (Gorillaz, Tank Girl, Monkey: Journey to the West) will feature in a
climate change exhibition organised by international development agency Oxfam.
Under Water Colours – Featuring Jamie Hewlett includes nine watercolours by Jamie following a trip he made with Oxfam to Char Atra in Bangladesh earlier this year.
On the trip Hewlett met people trying to raise their homes above the higher flood levels, parents who had lost children to the floods and children who swim to school with their books on their heads, determined not to allow the floods prevent them from getting an education.
Jamie said: “Char Atra is such an idyllic place and it’s horrific to think of it being simply washed away, devastating the community. I wanted my paintings to be optimistic as well as realistic and I wanted to show what a beautiful place it is. I hope by concentrating on the people and their every day lives that I have given people here in Britain something they can relate to.
“This exhibition shows how climate change is already affecting people around the world but also how we can all do something now to stop this from getting completely out of control.”
Drawings by some of the children Jamie met showing what climate change means to them will be on display at the exhibition, along with photographs, film and stories collected in Bangladesh by Oxfam.
The exhibition will launch just weeks before the UN Copenhagen talks in December. There, rich leaders must take the lead in negotiating a deal that prevents dangerous temperature rises and protects the world’s poor, who are already feeling its effects despite being least responsible.
Oxfam hopes the exhibition will encourage people to join Oxfam’s climate campaign and march at The Wave in London and Glasgow on December 5 to demand that the UK government pushes for the right deal at Copenhagen.
Phil Bloomer, Oxfam’s Campaigns and Policy Director, said: “Jamie’s artwork gives us some powerful insights into daily life in Bangladesh, despite the looming and growing threat of increasingly dangerous floods.
“This exhibition not only shows how climate change is a real and devastating threat to poor people, like those in Bangladesh, but provides people in the UK with a way to add their voice for a climate deal in Copenhagen that will address both the causes and effects.”
Limited edition prints of Jamie’s paintings can be purchased to support Oxfam’s River Basin programme, which operates in Char Atra and more widely in Bangladesh and Nepal. They are available priced £100 at the gallery during the first weekend of the exhibition or at
www.oxfam.org.uk/jamiehewlett//Ends
Jamie Hewlett – the artist behind Tank Girl and Gorillaz – visited Bangladesh with Oxfam, to see for himself how climate change is already costing lives.
The experience inspired a series of watercolours, limited edition prints of which are
now available to buy in aid of our work in Bangladesh and Nepal.
See the pictures in Bristol from 29 January–10 February 2010 at The Arts House, Stokes Croft.