VISITORS to “Women in Revolt! Art and Activism 1970-1990”, a recent exhibition touring from Tate Britain to the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh, and the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester, will have seen two works by Nancy Willis: Self Portrait IV (1983) and Self Portrait with Lost Baby (1988). For the artist, having works shown at three major art institutions is a far cry from her early days of campaigning for disability rights.
“I was delighted to have work selected for ‘Women in Revolt!’,” she says. “The exhibition covers the period in the 1980s when the Disability Arts Movement was born, a movement in which I was deeply involved. In those days, we were showing in day centres and libraries and community centres, all kinds of out-of-the-way places. We were not heard or seen in the world of mainstream art galleries. In the Tate exhibition, I was proud for my work to be shown alongside other excluded but powerful political women.”
Ms Willis developed the progressive condition of muscular dystrophy in childhood, and is now a wheelchair-user. “My disability is progressive; so I become weaker over time. As a child, I was able to run about and play with my four brothers. I dreamed of becoming an explorer, or joining the circus as a trapeze artist.
“When I grew up, I didn’t die as had been predicted, but went to art school instead. Learning the freedom of self-expression, through the process of art-making, I could continue to run around and sail through the air on a flying trapeze.”
The possibilities of digital art and the artist’s determination to create have countered the increasing mobility restrictions that Ms Willis experiences. “Recently, it has become difficult to make anything physically, but a part of me needs to keep trying. . . There’s still something important about the actual touch of materials and making marks on paper. While holding on to this, I can see through my experiments that digital and photographic possibilities might open new doors for me.”
SOLO exhibitions at St Mary’s, Walthamstow, near her home in east London, and then at St James’s, Piccadilly, in the West End, have brought Ms Willis’s work to the attention of both parishioners and art enthusiasts. “I applied to exhibit at St Mary’s as a part of the E17 Art Trail 2024. It was during this exhibition that I met Susannah Morgan, who is a member of St James’s Church Disability and Accessibility Group.
“Whilst studying art history at the Courtauld Institute, she had featured my work as a disabled artist in her BA dissertation. Having been to see my show, she nominated me to exhibit in St James’s during Disability History Month, and was encouraging and supportive throughout.”
For both exhibitions, the artist was able to draw on her churchgoing childhood. “Although my mum and dad were not believers, they did send me and my brothers to church when we were children. I remember we would put on our Sunday best and walk there, every week, whatever the weather; one time we arrived at the church, having battled our way through fierce winds and a blinding snowstorm, there was nobody else at all in the church, not one soul. The Vicar was astonished to find us there, dripping and battered, but I think we felt quite proud of ourselves for surviving this perilous freezing journey.
Eleanor BentallThe installation of With One Touch Her Spirit Soared at St James’s, Piccadilly
“The services were mostly sung. I don’t think I understood much, but I knew it was about something big — something higher than the sky and deeper than the sea. I remember some of the Bible stories, like the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the raising of Lazarus, the healing of the blind man, and the woman taken in adultery. Imagery from those stories settled into my mind and imagination.
“When I was a bit older, I heard the Beatitudes. I thought everything Jesus said was right, beautiful, and as it should be . . . speaking up for peace and compassion and against persecution.”
Ms Willis says that she is an agnostic: “Although I’m not a conventional believer, I find much to love about being in a church. It is a sacred and holy space for contemplation, imagination, and the spirit to fly. It is also a place to bring grief and mourning. It’s important to have places which are separate from and bigger than the everyday material world. I feel this power in nature, too.”
THE figure of Jesus still resonates with the artist. “I have the deepest respect for Jesus as a reformer, whose teachings advocated compassion, forgiveness, and justice. I admire him as being an extraordinary and brave man; I am just not sure I believe that he was also a divine being, who could perform miracles and come back from the dead.”
Portrayals of the Virgin Mary in art through the ages, especially artists’ treatment of the annunciation, have been a source of inspiration for her. “When choosing work for the St James’s show, I didn’t have time to create any new pieces; so I carefully selected works that I had already made, some of which had been sleeping quietly in folders for years. This show was the right moment for them to come out and be seen.
“Everything I chose is what I thought would be exactly right for the space. . . I didn’t want to use the chapel just as walls to put work on. I wanted my pieces to look as if they belonged there. I chose five works.”
These included Spirit Baby, which she describes as “my own version of ‘Mother and Child’. The choice of the red and gold frame helps to create a greater connection to the sacred art that I love. Mary Reaching Out is a fabric wall-hanging created from an original painting, an image that I had never shown before. It shows Mary at the foot of the cross, reaching out towards her son. It is an expression of profound grief and loss, set in a barren landscape.
“The big space behind the altar was just right to show this work. The wall was so fragile I decided to enlarge the painting and print it on fabric, which could be suspended and hung without hurting the wall. The hanging was installed directly behind where the priest celebrates the eucharist; so it became an integral part of church life.
“With One Touch Her Spirit Soared was the largest piece in the exhibition. I had it printed on Perspex from an original painting. When I first saw St James’s chapel space, I knew I wanted to make use of the beautiful clear glass window. Of all my paintings, I thought With One Touch Her Spirit Soared would be the best for creating my own stained-glass window.
“The composition is inspired by familiar paintings of the annunciation. It has a celebratory figure of a woman in a wheelchair as the central character, which I thought was fitting for Disability History Month. Her open arms fully embraced the space and its visitors.”
Feminine representations of the divine, and iconic traditions from Eastern Christianity, are also evident in Ms Willis’s work. “In my exhibition at St James’s Piccadilly, Mary holds a strong presence. She appears in some form in most of my chosen artworks.
“We were brought up with the idea of God as a man and Jesus as his son, but in my work, I have sought a womanly power. . . I think my attraction to Mary comes from the need for a nurturing mother figure. Although in the Bible we don’t hear much of Mary’s voice, artists have given us the image of an eternally giving and loving mother. This makes me think of what Julian of Norwich said: ‘When [a child] is hurt or frightened it runs to its mother for help as fast as it can; and [God] wants us to do the same.’”
Reflecting on the differences between exhibiting in churches and dedicated gallery spaces, Ms Willis observes: “St Mary’s, Walthamstow’s, exhibition space shares one wall with the 12th-century church, and perhaps there is something holy held in the ancient stones. As with St James’s, Piccadilly, the walls and the fabric of the church have to be treated with great respect; so it’s a huge practical challenge to hang work without doing any damage.
“St Mary’s, Walthamstow, is my local church. I’ve often sat in the churchyard, looking at nature and listening to singing coming from inside. It’s a peaceful place to be. I saw that an exhibition space had been created there, and thought this would be a perfect place to show some of my more reflective pieces.
“I do think there is a different feeling in a church from a conventional exhibition space: it encourages calm and quiet contemplation.”
More information about Nancy Willis’s work can be found at nancywillis.co.uk
