By Kerwin Debut Art Exhibition, The Forum, Norwich Dec 2020

The Debut Solo Art Exhibition of Kerwin Blackburn: ‘Lights, Canvas, Action’ 4 – 13 December 2020

In December 2020 I was delighted to showcase my entire range of Jackson Pollock-inspired, pop art music paintings for the first time ever. These went on display in my 10-day debut solo art exhibition, ‘Lights, Canvas, Action’, at The Forum, Norwich. After a year of public art exhibitions being cancelled due to the pandemic, and having few other options to exhibit my artwork, I decided to organise my own. It was great to finally get my paintings and artwork on display and meet so many people in my hometown of Norwich.

Exhibiting By Kerwin for the first time

With most public art spaces shut due to Covid-19 for the majority of 2020, it seemed the only way to get my newly-created range of By Kerwin pop art painting and artwork on display was to organise by own art exhibition. I’d exhibited at The Forum in Norwich in two weekend-long art fairs aged 18, with my first art business, Kerwin Art Collections Ltd. The idea to go on display at the same venue came to me when going to Pizza Express (located in the same building, as anyone from Norwich will know) with my parents in the August, which was around the ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ phase of the pandemic in 2020.

I went to the visitors’ desk and, speaking through facemasks, I asked for a leaflet about hiring the atrium space at The Forum for an event. The next week I got in touch and things went from there. I found out they had reduced their hire rates as their established, large-scale events has cancelled due to Covid, and they were struggling to find bookings.

I soon decided to go ahead – I mean, I wasn’t up to much else at the time other than my art in 2020, and it seemed an exciting opportunity. There weren’t many moments for genuine excitement and optimism that year. I also managed to secure a business start-up grant from the local council to cover part of the space hire, which was a bonus!

I’d decided on this 10-day stretch in December to capitalise on Christmas shopping – and also to incorporate two weekends into my exhibition, which I knew would be key. The Forum in Norwich also has one of Norwich’s biggest car parks, so I knew it would be great to foot traffic. Also, given the lockdowns of 2020, it turned out there was a lot of pent-up shopping demand (as well as a craving to see live art, it turned out) which benefitted my exhibition too. Luckily, my exhibition was timed extremely well in just five weeks that the UK had in between lockdown restrictions (you may remember, a couple of weeks later – just before Christmas – the government brought in the wild Tier system, so I got lucky with my timing).

Planning my debut, solo, art exhibition

I had – pardon the pun – a blank canvas to work with in terms of the space. That had professional display boards complete with wire hanging systems to work with – and these were flexible to move around and place as I wanted. Planning the blueprints carefully on my laptop, I designed a layout that would walk people through the display boards, with two of my paintings appearing on each board throughout, to fit my entire range in – around 40 paintings in total (including some earlier 2012 seascape paintings, to provide a background to my art journey).

Theming the exhibition around my music and pop art style, I also had the idea to begin visitors on a red carpet – creating a Hollywood Walk of Fame style environment. The red carpet led visitors to first see some of my most popular painting: Elvis, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Paul Weller, Blondie and Amy Winehouse. I also came up with the catchy exhibition title, ‘Lights, Canvas, Action’ (a play on the Hollywood phrase lights, canvas, action..), which I’ve still not managed to top.

I then spent hours on the layout and positioning of each painting – ensuring I had a nice balance of music genres and colours, rather than all similar personalities being grouped together. I then planned the other smaller details and materials that I would need, such as postcards, labels, signs directing people to my website and so on.

Setting my up debut exhibition at The Forum, Norwich, December 2020

When the day came to set up my exhibition on the 3rd December, the day before public opening, I was a bit nervous about doing this all for the first time, with everything on my shoulders. I remember the weather was terrible – raining all day. I’d enlisted my dad to help – it took around three or four car journeys between us to get all the paintings and materials. Being in the midst of Covid, everyone needed facemasks indoors, which seemed to add a layer of apprehension and awkwardness to things, when it came to crossing people in doorways and the like (this seems crazy now doesn’t it?!).

It took several hours to set up – I remember it being a very draining day, both physically and mentally (looking back at the time of writing in 2023, all of my exhibition and art fair set-ups have been). Also, given the Covid rules at the time, all doors had to be wide open all the time for circulation – and anyone who knows The Forum in Norwich knows how much empty space there is, and how much glass there is in between the big doors. It is the opposite of a warm and cosy space.

Opening By Kerwin to the public for the first time

The following day, with my hamstrings slightly sore from going up and down my stepladder so much, I opened for the first of my ten days, and I had great fun from there. I had to have a facemask on the whole time (so had to make an extra effort to speak loudly when talking to visitors), and I remember just how bloody cold it got every day. I shut around 5-6pm most days, later on weekends, and from about 3pm it was already dark and bitterly, bitterly cold. The giant doors were wide open of course – so each day I’d end up sat on my own in about 0 degree Celsius. Some days were even -1 or -2 degrees C.

I did have the bright colours of my paintings and my art videos which played on an eleven-minute loop (with sound on) to keep my warm. Plus, visitors would keep me engaged, as I’d leap up whenever I saw someone browsing and give them my By Kerwin elevator pitch. This was such an enjoyable experience in the context of the rest of 2020 – to be able to speak freely with other real people and – importantly – to be able to go out of my comfort zone and pitch myself and my brand to visitors for the first time. I’d missed this in 2020 – the previous year I’d been working in a sales role in Singapore and enjoyed the satisfaction of improving my in-person sales skills, yet this freedom had been curtailed due to Covid-19.

Launching my art brand in style

In the following ten days I met hundreds of visitors, sold dozens of prints and a few original paintings too – including The Who, Ian Brown, Elvis and my Damien Hirst-inspired abstract painting. It felt incredible. At the end I looked back and realised I’d sold thousands of pounds of my own paintings and artwork, which just blew me away. I also moved house during the exhibition! Importantly, I’d also got loads of great photos and marketing collateral to build on – and also gained the confidence to plan further exhibitions (my second exhibition was also in Norwich in May 2021 – read about this here).

I also filmed a video interview, and secured my first ever radio appearance – being interviewed for BBC Radio Norfolk (also located in the same building), and talking through my exhibition and story as I walked around with the presenter Stephen Bumfrey.

Overall, this was a fantastic ten days and experience of organising my debut solo exhibition. It was great to catch up with so many friends and family after so many months of being locked away too. I have some very fond memories from this exhibition – it was a great building block for By Kerwin.

Thanks to everyone who visited and those who made an original or print purchase!

You can continue to follow my art progress on Instagram and Facebook.

My range of ‘By Kerwin’ paintings capture some of the biggest icons from the world of music and pop culture in a never-before-seen way. My full range of Jackson Pollock-inspired acrylic paintings can be viewed at www.bykerwin.com – the originals and prints of these are available to purchase, with worldwide delivery.