Artists are drawn to Rye

The artists at Rye Creative Centre face an uncertain future – it is likely the building will be redeveloped next year. Rye News is featuring the stories of some of the artists who could be looking for new places to work. This week: Lenka Medlik.

Lenka is a printmaker, mixed-media and watercolour artist at Rye Creative Centre. She
trained at Goldsmiths in London and New South Wales University, completing a masters in printmaking. Her work is found in universities, museums and private collections here and in Australia. Some recent mixed media views of Rye are currently on show at the station, as part of an exhibition of poetry by Rye Harbour writers to which she is also belongs.

Rye has been called “the St Ives of the south east” with good reason: it combines a rich
historical legacy with physical beauty and a thriving art scene. Generations of artists have been drawn to the town, stayed, and built up an artistic heritage, which is being continued to this day, ensuring it is not just a museum but a contemporary organic development.

Up until now. There are numerous artists around here, with a sizeable concentration (over 30) at the Rye Creative Centre. Not only do they work in their studios producing new and original artworks, they interact, feeding one another’s skills and inspiration, and they put on regular exhibitions, open studios and workshops involving the local community and visitors from further afield. However it is likely to close next year, being a site designated for housing in the Rye town plan, leaving uncertainty for the community of artists who have worked there for the last fifteen years.

When I first came to the centre at the start of lockdown, I wondered whether I couldn’t just continue making art in a spare space at home. I was soon convinced of the unique
importance of a “room of one’s own”: it enabled a concentrated focus in a quiet place
removed from the distractions of modern life, within a vibrant and stimulating community which validated the sometimes fragile nature of creating works of art.

This is particularly important today. Artists are sometimes portrayed as self-indulgent, in a world of their own – so why should people in general be concerned that the artists are about to lose their premises?

One obvious reason is revenue for the town. Art is part of Rye’s unique heritage and an
attraction for visitors in its own right, so brings wider tourist income to the town.
Art also has a direct effect on our health and well-being that goes beyond the enjoyment in attending an exhibition or contemplating a picture in private. A recent study showed that art in hospitals has a similar effect to greenery in those places: patients recover more quickly and thereby reduce NHS costs.

But there is something else less tangible to consider. This year’s Remembrance Sunday
commentary in The Observer (How Leonardo, Van Gogh and Monet help us to transcend the gloom 10 November) states:

“In our own moment of global political turmoil, the result of those labours, now on display in London, might not only serve as fabulous distraction but also as a reminder of a few lasting truths: one is that the opposites of political strife and rising authoritarianism are not only resistance and argument, but also uninhibited imagination and creativity. Another is that when the substance of ancient divisions is forgotten, the greatest artists tend to have the last and lasting word.”

While we at Rye Creative Centre might not be in quite the same league, one has to start
somewhere, and many of us exhibit in London and internationally, and definitely bring
enrichment to many lives. One of the happiest dates in our calendar is open studios,
when we display our working practices along with finished works, and most significantly, interact with a wide audience who clearly care passionately about art. Let us hope there is a place for us in the future.

You can read last week’s Rye Creative Centre artist here.

Image Credits: Lenka Medlik .