One piece of art helped me understand three major changes in my life ...Middle East

I had walked around the freshly opened Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy at least five times before I spied her. But the moment I saw her, I just knew she must be mine.

What a feast for the senses this special exhibition is: a rare annual event where all art and artists can make it onto these historic walls, floors and ceilings. But while many creations had amazed and awed me (and also turned me right off) nothing thus far had screamed: “You must have me.”

But then there was Liminal. Or rather image number 408, as it was described, leaving me frantically looking it up in the exhibition brochure. Tucked away in a corner, sandwiched between other beautiful pieces, this small but arresting image spoke to where I am in my life right now. 

It is a photograph, a direct print on aluminium dibond, depicting a woman suspended in mid-air between land and sea as she jumps into the ocean but before she hits the water. Donning a wetsuit, arms straight out behind her, head tilted down: she is a perfect freeze frame captured before immersion. She is taking her turn and this is definitely her moment.

Similarly black-clad women are queuing behind her on quite an ugly stone and wrought iron jetty waiting for their great plunge into the sea, which I just know to be cold. The sky is grey behind them, with a slither of land in the background, but it also has a threat of pink in it, stopping the whole weather scene from feeling bleak.

There is a small, Eighties-looking, slightly battered white sign with red writing affixed to the side of this group’s portal to the water, warning: “DO NOT APPROACH OR FEED THE SEALS.” 

Seals? I was convinced it was going to be seagulls. But hey ho. It matters not. What matters is what the artist has captured and the fact I would like to capture it for myself, frame it, and hang it above my desk at home. 

The piece is called Liminal, which happens to be one of my favourite words, especially at the moment. Meaning: “relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.” I feel, especially since struggling to have a baby and then becoming a parent twice over five years apart, that I have occupied a liminal space. Not knowing where I begin and end, or what the next stage is and when that begins. Motherhood, life, identity, work and navigating ill health have meant leaning into the liminal. Hard.

It is, as we say in Yiddish, a language that sometimes expresses things better than my own, “beshert”: meant to be. The artist has perfectly named the feeling his art has encapsulated. I almost don’t want or need to know more.

Mercifully the piece is also relatively affordable. I say relatively in the context of life finances, but also in the wildly variable price tags in art generally. At the Summer Exhibition, some pieces are sold for sums in the high thousands. My piece is £375 for an unframed edition in a run of 20, and you pay 50 per cent on the day.

square EMMA BARNETT

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As I hand over my bank card at the tills, pretty exhilarated by my first ever purchase at the Summer Exhibition and the speed with which I made up my mind, my friend and date for the show is surprised at how fast I’ve moved. But I missed out on art once before – in my twenties at the Affordable Art Fair – and it has slightly haunted me since. I vowed not to make the same mistake again.

What’s also special about this annual art jamboree, where I have not felt I could buy a piece before until now, is that unlike most other art exhibitions, you don’t know anything about what you are looking at. There are no lengthy paragraphs next to each piece or an audio guide. There are just numbers. Even in the brochure, there’s nothing but the name of the work and the artist. I love that it strips art right back to what it makes you feel and how it speaks to you.

I have frequented our largely free art galleries since I was small. I knew Manchester’s city centre art gallery like the back of my hand – greeting Sir Edwin Landseer’s lion like an old friend and nodding hello to Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s stunning Astarte Syriaca each time. I felt at home in the city’s Whitworth Art Gallery.

I found it so exciting to race around and see what I could see, imagining what was going on and delighting in feelings the paintings or sculptures induced. This art was another form of storytelling, but one where I could play a role too, with my responses adding to the experience.

Not that I knew this was what I was enjoying at the time. And of course sometimes I found visiting galleries, depending on the exhibition or my mood as a teen, desperately boring. Especially on holiday, as my parents sought cultural stimulation and shade from the sun.

But I still find galleries to be spaces I feel excited by, deeply at peace within, and confident at navigating, especially as there are no rules.

When I got home, I looked up Liminal and discovered that the creator is called Tami Masunda, who in addition to being a photographer, is an architectural designer. I also discovered that it was shot in St Ives, Cornwall. It was England after all. But to be honest, the details matter not. What matters is always how the art makes you feel. And sometimes, you can take that feeling home.

This week I have been…

Watching…

Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams. Our son is cricket mad and has just discovered our Freddie. So we are coming to this joyous programme late, and it’s proving to be lovely. As an exiled northerner – from down the road to Flintoff’s Preston – I am also delighting in my southern child hearing some excellent accents alongside his new favourite sport. 

Listening to…

Margaret Drabble on This Cultural Life. I had no idea about her life beyond some of her books and she is so sure of her views – it’s like an aural exfoliator. Refreshing, entertaining and moving. From sibling rivalry to why she doesn’t believe in prizes for creativity – dive in.

Reading…

Kakigori Summer by Emily Itami. I am greatly enjoying this beautifully crafted novel about three sisters reunited for a summer on the Japanese coast. It is out later this month. This is your hat tip. Take it and get comfy on your hols with it.

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