黑料不打烊

First shown at the Venice Biennale in 2017, Stephen Chambers鈥� The Court of Redonda depicts a cast of 101 imaginary courtiers inspired by a literary legend that developed around the tiny uninhabited Caribbean island of Redonda.

This legend took shape as a fantasy in the mind of Matthew Dowdy Sheill, a merchant trader who claimed the island in 1865 and gave himself the title of King. The title passed down to his son, who decided that it should be given to poets and novelists as a form of literary honour. The celebrated novelist Javier Mar铆as was a recent sovereign and his appointment of courtiers, including film director Pedro Almod贸var and novelists AS Byatt and Ian McEwan, inspired Chambers to create his own imaginary court of Redondans: not just poets, philosophers, artists and writers, but also patients, pharmacists, harlots and 鈥渂ums鈥�.

Chambers explains: 鈥業t鈥檚 a construct, it鈥檚 an idea that I was intrigued with. I wrote to Javier Mar铆as, and in that correspondence, I suggested that I would paint portraits of the court. The paintings are not portraits from life, and they鈥檙e not depictions of real people, they are invented. I wanted to present a wide range of motley ne鈥檈r-do-wells and in a way, celebrate their ordinariness. There is that line that I kick around my head which goes 鈥榯he ordinary is more extraordinary than the extraordinary鈥欌��.

The Court of Redonda is joined in this exhibition by other series of works by Chambers exploring histories, both real and imagined.