House of Mercy - an online project during lockdown

The House of Mercy project was and is an ongoing online multi-arts project devised during the pandemic, combining music, dance, photography, painting and video. The aim is to show how creative arts practitioners have been able to remain creative throughout the pandemic, in spite of their isolation and often with limited space. During the first lockdown period, my partner and I recorded an album of songs (I'm a musician and she's a singer and painter), one of which is House of Mercy, by the talented American songwriter, Sarah Jarosz. Prior to Covid, we had begun to photograph and paint dancers and I thought it might be an interesting project to ask some of the dancers we had met and who were now spread all over the world, if they would like to devise a short routine to the song. The idea being that they would perform their dances via Facetime or Zoom, I would photograph them and my partner would then choose some images to paint. I had never tried to photograph directly from a screen before and soon realised that it was pretty impossible. After a lot of trial and error, we have now worked out a system whereby, the dancers film themselves and send me the video which I then go through slowly in my studio and make some images. I then ask them to d a stills shoot where the assume some of our favourite shots and a try to get a clearer image that way too. This is a selection. The final videos, plus a selection of paintings and images will be exhibited in a virtual gallery.