Naseem leaflet - Naseem Darbey

16 April – 26 June
Cliffe Castle Museum, Keighley
www.bradfordmuseums.org
www.naseemdarbey.com
Between the Lines
naseem darbey
Between the Lines
naseem darbey
A revelatory exploration of a missing life; shadow sculptures inspired
by personal objects.
Mary Louise Roosevelt Burke Butterfield’s image survives in a series
of mostly posthumous portraits in oil, stained glass and in the writing
of others. Memories of her survive in letters and fragile remnants of
costume. But her presence remains at the Castle, her premature
death in 1868 sparking a building passion in her widowed husband
that resulted in the extravagances of the fairy tale castle she could
never inhabit.
Artists dream of open briefs and generous
commissioners who trust the artists to
discover ideas that will inspire them to
create new artworks. “Between the Lines”
at Cliffe Castle Museum was just such
an opportunity for Naseem Darbey.
Commissioned by Bradford Museum’s &
Galleries, Darbey was given free rein to delve
and investigate museum collections over her
one-year residency. Seeking to create a sitespecific work that reflected the 19th century
owners, Darbey found her muse in letters
written by Mary Louise Roosevelt Burke
Butterfield, the American wife of Henry Isaac
Butterfield, a West Yorkshire textile magnate
and owner of Cliffe Castle.
Mary’s presence at the Castle has always
been fleeting. She died shortly before she
turned thirty. Cliffe Hall was not enlarged into
a Castle until after her death, and she
preferred to live at the family’s Paris home.
Understandably, the Museum focuses on her
husband, so Darbey decided to focus on his
wife. The letters Darbey discovered were
written in French. Signed in the French
fashion, Marie, or with her middle name
Louise, no one realised they were written by
Mary. Translated by Darbey’s linguist fatherin-law, the letters were a revelation. One in
particular provided the quotation that
inspired Darbey’s heart sculpture – the
central piece in “Between the Lines”.
Mary Louise begins her letter, “Dear and
ungrateful Husband”. She pleads with Henry
to “come on Tuesday I implore you and make
me truly happy - at least write to me if your
heart is not nailed to Cliffe Hall, and, as a
result is dry and silent”. Her imagery
captivates. Her husband’s heart, which Mary
hopes beats only for her, is metaphorically
silent and impaled on the building which
would become his passion after her death.
Darbey’s decision “to give Mary a voice”, is
realised in her profoundly moving heart
sculpture in which the artist represents the
heart with interpreted medical accuracy and
nails it to its plinth with finality. The heart
sculpture is exhibited with Darbey’s “shadow
sculptures”, including her “shadow” of the
“Butterfield Bodice” – an embroidered gown
bodice reputed to have belonged to Mary.
The technique Darbey uses to create
her work is drawing. The artist’s ultimate
objective is to make her drawings leave
the page, and although Darbey’s lines
begin in a two-dimensional plane, they
are eventually transformed into three
dimensional sculptures. Similar to the artist
Paul Klee who famously observed that
drawing was “taking a line for a walk”, Darbey’s
lines move. But where Klee’s lines stayed “on
the street”, Darbey’s lines abseil, rock climb
and do a bit of bouldering. She achieves this
dynamic outcome by drawing with stitch.
A sewing machine is her drawing tool. She
draws freehand, constantly moving her
sewing machine needle over her base
medium – double layers of “Romeo
Aquatics”, a water soluble pliable clear film.
When her drawing is complete, she sculpts
her lines over a Styrofoam base and
dissolves the glue film. The only trace
evidence left is the solid 3D structure of her
lines. The result is a unique and complex
“hollow drawing”.
Darbey’s drawings can be observed from
numerous perspectives. They are layered,
complex and challenging works. But while her
technique is remarkable, the element that
elevates Darbey’s outcome is story. Darbey
creates narratives as solid and as viable as
her sculptural techniques. Through her
sculptures, the remarkable story of Mary
Louise Roosevelt Burke Butterfield is finally
reunited to the Castle she never visited, and
to the memory of the husband for whom she
was “forever all for you.”
Denna Jones