OVADA Gallery
Gloucester Green Bus Station
Oxford OX1 2AQ

22 May - 20 June 2009
Tuesday to Friday 10am – 5pm; Saturday 11am – 4pm
Preview: Thursday 21 May, 6 – 8pm
Interview and book launch of Brixton Beach: Tuesday 2 June, 6pm

As a painter, installation artist, and filmmaker Roma Tearne’s practice deals with history and
memory within public and private spaces. OVADA is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new
work by Tearne, investigating the lost stories and memories of strangers, inspired by objects
discovered in museum collections. This exhibition, Watermuseum, focuses specifically on the
Museo Navale, Venice. It is a culmination of work made during her AHRC Fellowship in Visual Arts
at Oxford Brookes University.

Deborah Dean, at Nottingham Castle museum writes, ‘Tearne is an instinctive storyteller, often
beginning with the bare facts and visual evidence of an object, photograph or place and then
fabricating a past to fill in the gaps. This is particularly evident in her films, where she weaves
together images with a spoken narrative. Watermuseum, the film, was made after Tearne saw a
painting of Venice by Richard Bonington at the Castle Museum earlier this year. Tearne has a
recurring fascination with Venice and its combination of the dramatic and the mundane. The
painting reminded her of unused film footage she had shot in Venice several years ago. She has
added new material to these fragments to take us beyond the familiar, ornamented facades of the
city to reveal glimpses of unexpected spectacle and incident.’

Bonington’s painting then prompted Tearne to unearth a box of old glass negatives that she
purchased in Venice some years ago. She presents them as artefacts from an unidentified past.
Together with this is a new installation of 19th century blue glass bottles. The blue cobalt of the glass
was frequently imported from Venice. As in all the work in this exhibition, Tearne leaves us to
ponder on their potential and imagine how they might have looked and lived.

Roma Tearne, a Sri Lankan-born artist, lives and works in Britain. She completed her MA at the
Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford. She is currently Creative Writing Fellow at Oxford
Brookes University and in June 2009 Harper Collins publishes her third novel, Brixton Beach.
For further information and images contact Lucy Phillips, Acting Projects Manager, on
01865 201782, info@ovada.org.uk or visit: www.ovada.org.uk

Also, please visit Roma's website for further information:  www.romatearne.com