Nigel Oxley – My Father’s War



April 18 – May 9 2019

Nigel Oxley My Father's War
Nigel Oxley – My Father’s War – Welcome Home – multi media print 56 x 76 cm

Several years after his father’s death Nigel Oxley found artefacts relating to his father’s war when he was sorting through boxes of his father’s effects

These works are a response to his father’s lived experiences as a prisoner of war from 1942 to 1945 – stories the artist was never told directly but discovered several years after his father’s death while sorting through his effects. The relics that were used to produce these two suites of prints tell a personal history but also reveal the experience of those confronting conflict and imprisonment and through the creativity of human spirit, the attempts to build and engage with an environment beyond the hostility and brutality of incarceration.

My Father’s War consists of two parts of The Muhlberg Suite.

The Muhlberg Suite – Part One – Ewa’s Story

  1. Cigarette Case, Warsaw 1944
  2. Look at Me and Remember Me
  3. My Dear Bill
  4. I Love You
  5. But the Life is Before Us
  6. Postkarte
  7. One Night to Remember Only Beautiful Things

The Muhlberg Suite – Part Two – My Father’s War

  1. Kit Bag
  2. Tobruk, Stand To at Dawn
  3. ‘…next week is Christmas…’
  4. Muhlberg, Stalag IBV
  5. ‘Gefangenschaft – Captivity’
  6. The Empire Theatre, Make-Up Box
  7. Welcome Home
  8. Epilogue

NIGEL OXLEY

It is 50 years since Nigel Oxley made his first print at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in London.  After graduating he became assistant to Cliff White at White Ink etching studio where he worked with Sydney Nolan, Elizabeth Frink, Victor Pasmore, Eduardo Paolozzi and Joe Tilson.

In 1978 he was invited to become Master Printer at the renowned screen printing studio Kelpra where he was charged with setting up an in-house etching studio.  He continued to work with Frink and Tilson and produced a large body of work for John Hoyland that broke new boundaries for etched marks and colour.  This led to him working with Jim Dine and Patrick Heron and also, over a period of 10 years, more than 30 complex multi-plate colour etching for John Piper.

By the time of Kelpra’s closure Oxley was already teaching at Sir John Cass School of Art in London where he stayed until retiring as Senior Lecturer in Drawing and Printmaking in 2012.  He continues to work and teach from his own studio in East Sussex and is author of Colour Etching one of the series of A&C Black Printmaking Handbooks.