New Year's Day is Black
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Propolis
Published:21st Oct '16
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In 2015 the artist Nicky Loutit began making paintings and putting down thoughts which evolved as she walked the coast of North Norfolk. New Year's Day Is Black is a visualization of memory; of how our past returns to us when we least expect or want it to. It is a meditation on motherhood, ageing and the journey of a life fully lived. As the child of prominent members of London's cultural elite in the '40s and '50s, her place was that of an infant hanger-on, mostly ignored by the artistic and intellectual crowd she was born into. But beneath that veneer of bohemian eccentricity, Loutit silently endured a life marked by physical, mental and sexual abuse at the hands of some of those responsible for her. Recounting the occasional kindness of the people she knew, including George Orwell, Cyril Connolly and Francis Partridge, alongside the trauma of her abuse, Loutit paints a life which triumphs over regret and adversity. Her story affords those who experience it the chance to be moved and inspired by a remarkable woman in a remarkable way.
What follows is a story of neglect and but also of survival and, in the end, renewal... It is a quietly devastating book, which deserves the widest possible circulation - whether the reader happens to be interested in Connolly, Orwell, Frances and Ralph Partridge or simply the fate of small children left to their own devices while the noise of the adult world booms on terrifyingly in the endlessly disputed space above their heads. - D.J.Taylor Right from the start I found it completely gripping. Beautiful and horrifying ... utterly extraordinary. The evocation of that very particular loneliness irrelevant children feel was almost unbearable: Congratulations to Nicky Loutit for making work out of the terrible. -Eimear McBride Can a child's pain can be assimilated into art? Can joy emerge from a determination not to turn away from darkness? Do age and introspection have the power to heal the soul? The answer according to Nicky Loutit's haunting visual memoir is yes, yes, defiantly gloriously yes. -Meg Rosoff Nicky Loutit's words, drawings and paintings combine in an urgent and original way to propel us along the rocky road of her journey. It is disturbing territory and the adventure is brave, compelling and moving. -Maggi Hambling
ISBN: 9780992946029
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown