On February 7th 2015, one week before Valentines Day, we (a few lawyers and I) got together to do something very unlawyer-like, we decided to show our creative side. ‘Just love’ was our theme in keeping with the theme of Valentines Day – a day where people all over the world were buying flowers, chocolates and cards to give to their loved ones.
The Venue
Catherine, Jane Li, Winsy and I decided to put out the paintings that we had been doing in our free time, and invite people to come and have a look. We hired an intimate venue in Baker Street and had Sax & Honey, an award winning duo of a tenor saxophone and exquisite vocalist, set the mood for the entire evening with classic jazz songs like “Mr Bonjangles.”
Being two Tanzanians and two girls from Hong Kong, it was a Tanzanian, Hong Kong duo. We are all professional lawyers and we all like to paint, but everyone showed their individual style. Catherine, from Tanzania, showed her acrylic paintings, inspirational boards with figures and text. Jane Li, from Hong Kong, presented her oils paintings of still life and Winsy, presented her charcoal pieces. I went out on a limb and presented my latest watercolour paintings. Watercolour is still quite new to me, as most of my experience painting has been with using oil paints.
We are all professional lawyers and we all like to paint, but everyone showed their individual style.
Exhibition Day
Between the four of us, people from our different networks came to support us. We were also graciously graced by the Tanzanian High Commissioner of Tanzania to the United Kingdom as well as his beautiful wife.
Not only did the show receive an incredible response, but we learned something interesting from putting up an exhibition of this nature. Given that the theme of the exhibition was “Just Love” – a topic that evokes various emotions. The pieces created great discussion amongst the crowd, and the space was filled with moving and joyful reminders that love surrounds every person every hour of the day. We discovered how very special and important it is to create a space not just for art but for the conversations that come along with them.
The pieces created great discussion amongst the crowd, and the space was filled with moving and joyful reminders that love surrounds every person every hour of the day.
In Closing
This was the second exhibition that Catherine and I had created together and a whole new level from our first exhibition. Other than an exercise of sharing, “Just Love” had us put ourselves out there, which was an incredible experience. We look forward to working together again and learning fascinating new ways to have our art meet an audience. We’re grateful to those that came to support the show and hope we left everyone feeling, joyful and hopeful on this special day of love.
