Charmaine Watkiss: Legacy at Abbot Hall

Maja Lorkowska, Exhibitions Editor

Book now

Charmaine Watkiss: Legacy

20 July-28 December 2024

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

Charmaine Watkiss, Safe Guarding the Sacred Boundary of the Bountfiul
Charmaine Watkiss
Book now

Abbot Hall presents a solo exhibition from Charmaine Watkiss: Legacy gathers a collection of drawings exploring the relationship between humans and nature.

Watkiss takes a closer look at what she descibes as “memory states”: history, ritual, tradition and ancestry. She is interested in plants, healing herbs and their larger cultural significance in relation to the African Caribbean diaspora.

Her delicate drawings are often large in size but subtle in style, with faint pencil lines sometimes enhanced by the use of watercolour. There is a tenderness in her portraits of women intertwined with natural elements. Legacy also includes the installation Witness (2023) originally commissioned for Liverpool Biennial 2023, ‘uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost Things’, consisting of life-sized drawings and sculpture.

Accessibility

  • Relaxed

Where to go near Charmaine Watkiss: Legacy at Abbot Hall

Cross Lane Projects, Kendal, Cumbria. Art gallery, artist studios and exhibition space
Kendal and Sedbergh
Gallery
Cross Lane Projects

Founded by artists Rebecca Scott and Mark Woods, Cross Lane Projects brings new contemporary art to Cumbria and is situated in a former Kendal Mint Cake factory in central Kendal.

Comida
Kendal and Sedbergh
Restaurant
Comida

Spanish inspired restaurant serves up Iberian classic dishes such as Spanish Omelette and Chorizo, plus many intriguing wines.

Fell Bar Brewery
Kendal and Sedbergh
Bar or Pub
Fell Bar Brewery

Fell Bar is an outlet for the Fell Brewery and a great independent venue in itself, with a broad range of connoisseur-level craft beers.

The Joshua Tree
Kendal and Sedbergh
Restaurant
The Joshua Tree

The Joshua Tree is a family-run, homely bistro and restaurant housed in a sixteenth century building, specialising in coffee and exquisite fish and meat dishes.

What's on: Exhibitions

Until
Exhibitions
The Vessel at PINK

Chris Thompson transforms PINK into an uncanny, interactive cabinet of obsessions, inviting visitors to uncover its shifting, unstable narratives.

Free entry
Until
ExhibitionsCity Centre
Just Browsing at the Bluecoat

Please DO touch – Bluecoat’s new exhibition ‘Just Browsing’ allows audiences to get closer to the artworks and engage beyond looking.

Free entry

Culture Guides

Music in the North

Manchester’s starting the new year with a run of gigs from some of the country’s best underground exports.

Food and Drink in the North

Hear ye, hear ye. Take some eating-out tips from our wintertime guide to food and drink in Manchester and the North.

Textured portrait image of Jarman
Theatre in the North

Theatre across the North West splits between festive escape and sharp, urgent work exploring politics, power and resistance.

A doll with makeup peeks out of a hanging wall of butter yellow fabric. Red and black threads descend and cascade around the doll.
Exhibitions in the North

This season, exhibitions across the North West feel attuned to the world beneath the world – the forces and stories shaping how we see, feel and imagine.

A performer in a bright red costume sits on a snowy stage set, holding a large snowball between their legs with a surprised expression. The colourful winter backdrop features snowflakes, hills, a snowman, and a traffic light with glowing lights.
Family things to do in the North

Whether you’re after storybook theatre, museum wanderings or illusion-bending play spaces, there’s plenty to keep curiosity ticking through winter and beyond.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
Cinema in the North

There's no shortage of great films out at the moment, whether you're looking for the latest blockbuster, that hot arthouse flick fresh from Cannes or a cosy classic.