Miranda Housden, a sculptor of more than thirty years is opening her first exhibition tonight as a painter. Entitled Players, it is an exciting move for an artist used to large scale installations as she moves her gaze to the pieces on a chess board to portray some of the most significant relationships throughout her life. 

There are thirty-two paintings portraying, for example, mother; father; lover; friend. Miranda attempts to transfer the emotions and feelings unique to each relationship, to each person, onto canvas. Some of the paintings suggest play; others show a lightness and a sense of warmth while others are dark and foreboding. Players asks questions of us all: in which pieces might we see ourselves and how might we be seen by others. 

Believed to have originated in India in the 7^th Century, Chess has been played for more than fifteen hundred years. Like Chess, “Players” the exhibition can be seen as a psychological game, a battle of wits, ending with the death of a king. To be good at chess requires strategy; the detection of power dynamics; the ability to predict your opponent’s next move and to anticipate those unintended consequences. Just as in Chess, Miranda, is acutely aware that with each move she also exposes her vulnerability.

The exhibition which opens on Saturday the 20^th of May will be held in The Old Morgue in Stonehouse until Saturday the 22^nd of July.