Bookham Life Art at Lower Shott
Anyone who has hidden from the rain at the bus-shelter on the A246 by Lower Shott will know it is fairly drab place, but that has now changed! As part of the renovation of the public facilities block the BRA and Mole Valley Council’s Property Team have installing some colourful public art.
The artist is Elise Macfarlane, a Year 8 student at The Howard of Effingham School, who chose to centre her triptych on three famous authors with Bookham connections: Jane Austen, C.S Lewis and Lewis Carroll.
Elise tells us the first painting imagines Jane Austen, sitting outside Polesden Lacey House on a sunny afternoon writing one of her most famous novels, Pride and Prejudice. Jane’s Godfather was Rev. Samuel Cooke, the vicar of St. Nicolas’ Church, who she stayed with on several occasions.
The second painting depicts Alice (Alice in Wonderland) spotting a white rabbit fleeing down a hole on Bookham Common, while the Lion (The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe) stands proudly above. Between 1914-17, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S Lewis privately studied in Great Bookham with W.T. Kirkpatrick, the former Headmaster of Lurgan College, Northern Ireland.
The author of Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, first arrived in Guildford in 1868. Although there is no direct information on Carroll visiting Bookham, there is a strong chance that he did at some point. Including Alice in the painting adds humour, as with every rabbit hole she comes across, Alice would always be intrigued by what could be down there! The three signposts: saying, “Bookham Common”, “Narnia” and “Wonderland” shows three different ‘worlds’ intertwined with each other.
The third painting depicts Bookham Station with its iconic bridge. Elise wanted to include the train station as she has many happy – slightly stressful! - memories of sprinting to the station and running up the bridge to hop on a nearly-leaving train!
For the original paintings Elise used Acrylic paint, her favourite medium because she can use different tools to add texture and layer up the different colours to create cool effects.
Well done Elise – a worthy winner of the BRA Life Art Competition. Elise receives her award from Simon Edge - BRA Chairman
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