David Shenton: Kindly Ease The Tension exhibition – Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery

The first major retrospective exhibition of the work of pioneering artist David Shenton will go on show at Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery this July. Curated by artist Ian Giles, Kindly Ease The Tension will feature more than 150 works bringing together cartoons, illustrations, paintings, clothing, knitted artworks and large-scale textiles.

David Shenton moved to Norfolk in the 1970s working as a teacher and in the Education Department at Norwich Prison before becoming a freelance cartoonist and illustrator. Except for a spell in London, he has lived in Norwich ever since. Kindly Ease The Tension traces his artistic journey via early textile works made at Loughborough College of Art – through to his fulltime employment as a freelance cartoonist – to his later largescale textile pieces. Taken together the works represent a joyful, deeply human journey.

Highlights on display include:

• The ‘Duvet of Love’, an extraordinary memorial to friends lost during the AIDS epidemic. Comprised of thousands of button badges arranged into a mosaic portrait on a plain black duvet cover, it is a portrait of two men embracing.
• The patchwork quilt zine ‘My Four December Weddings’, which tells the story of how, long before civil partnerships and marriage equality in the UK, David and his partner John found a quiet way to record their relationship: by adding both their names to a Tesco Clubcard account.
• A hand-knitted version of the banner celebrating Justin Fashanu’s Goal of the Season for Norwich City against Liverpool in 1980. Fashanu was the first openly gay professional footballer and scored what is often cited as one of the best goals in English football history. Shenton’s homage to Fashanu highlights the work of supporters group the Proud Canaries in challenging homophobia in football and was unfurled when Norwich City took on Liverpool at Carrow Road in February 2020.
• The Gansey of Inclusivity’ a 1.72m high fisherman’s jumper made in collaboration with Sheringham Museum celebrating the LGBTQ+ community in East Anglia.
• The ‘Dark Lanterns’, a series of 12 lanterns made from fabric, card and postcards that record instances of hate crime against the LGBTQ+ communities over the past 100 years.

To bring David’s cartoons off the page, artist Ian Giles has designed an expansive installation featuring printed wallpapers based on David’s drawings and life-sized cartoon cut outs. David has also created new works for the exhibition including a monumental, illustrated timeline and a quilt in honour of the landladies of Norwich gay bars.

Kindly Ease The Tension, is guest curated by Ian Giles, together with Ruth Battersby Senior Textiles Curator at Norfolk Museums Service. Ian Giles is an artist whose practice spans film, performance and social practice and which is rooted in queer histories, collective memory and language. Working collaboratively, his work often centres around the re-staging of events and re-enactments, celebrating community and creative acts.