Phoebe Boswell’s Sentinel (Green) acquired for The Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds

We are thrilled to announce that The Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery have recently acquired Phoebe Boswell’s Sentinel (Green) for their permanent collection through our Fine Art Acquisition Scheme. 

With a predominantly figurative approach, Phoebe Boswell’s artistic practice is rooted in drawing, yet also encompasses a diverse range of other mediums, including drawing, animation, sound, video, writing, installation and painting. Her work is concerned with issues surrounding diaspora, migration, bodies, protest, climate change, and capitalism, and how they interconnect as time unfolds. 

Boswell’s notable series, Future Ancestors: Sentinels (2021), to which Sentinel (Green)(2021) belongs to, portrays the fishermen near her ancestral home in Zanzibar, Tanzania of whom she encountered. These men, whose lives have been intertwined with the sea for generations, face a multitude of challenges brought on by climate change, tourism, and overfishing. By bestowing upon these fishermen, the title of "future ancestors," Boswell honours these men who yearn for a "new place" that transcends Zanzibar's historical identity as a slave port and the pressing climate crisis. As she explains, the series is ‘a call to remember as well as a call to arms’. Boswell believes that ‘we need to know how resilient and adaptive we are, in order for our imaginations to begin to envision a new place.’  

The themes present in Boswell's work align closely with the pressing issues of migration, climate change, and sustainability that have gained immense importance within the University of Leeds Art Collection and its temporary exhibitions program. Furthermore, her contributions to the gallery's extensive collection of drawings enrich the teaching of artistic techniques for university students. Lastly, as a centre dedicated to feminist art history, The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery wholeheartedly welcomes an artist like Boswell, whose broader artistic practice consistently engages with the principles of Black Feminism. 

Those interested and curious should visit Boswell’s ongoing exhibition, A Tree Says [In These Boughs The World Rustles] at Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham (8 July – 5 November 2023). Having opened last week, Boswell’s exhibition features new, site-specific work that inhabits the gallery and its surrounding woodlands, engaging the audience in an intergenerational call and response. Where trees become repositories of enquiry, and nature a contemplative platform, Boswell creates space for us to raise our questions and listen to the voices of our elders as they endeavour to articulate life.

Victoria Kosasie
Curatorial Trainee