This exhibition is in the past. View our current exhibitions.
CHLOE COX (B. 1997)
Portrait of Alford Gardner
b. 27 January 1926, Jamaica | Came to Britain in 1948 | Oil on canvas
Alford boarded the HMT Empire Windrush on 24 May 1948 arriving at Tilbury docks on the 22 June 1948. He settled in Leeds, worked as an engineer using skills first learnt in the RAF that he had served in from 1944. He married Norma McKenna in 1952, raised a family of eight children and helped to setup The Caribbean Cricket Club. As he puts it, ‘I’ve had a beautiful life’.
Artist Chloe Cox’s reflection
Alford’s warm welcome and verbal cadences reminded me so much of my grandparents, it was easy to forget the work … I needed a pose that carried an air of reflection and contentment, but that also felt true to the personality I’d got to know in a couple of short meetings. And that’s how we wound up with this work … I’m truly grateful to have been invited to take part.
