The Nelson Touch: Exhibition at the Royal Naval Museum at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

This exhibition was created as part of the residency celebrating the Sea Britain: Trafalgar Festival, which focused on the Nelson phenomenon.

Sarah Woodfine was selected along with Helen Maurer for this residency and exhibition at the Royal Naval Museum at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard by the project curator Victoria Preston. The artists were chosen to complement each other in their working methods, the presentation of other worlds by means of illusionistic devices derived from found images as sources for the development of ideas.

The project was a collaboration between Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth and The Royal Naval Museum. Woodfine used the Lily Lambert McCarthy collection at the museum as source material in order to look at historical maritime images that did not signify the heroism and machismo of war and to research the mythology and multi-faceted persona of Nelson and his naval strategies. This research project addressed the pathos of war – the moments after the battle, the isolation and emptiness of its aftermath.

Woodfine produced a 3D drawing/sculpture inspired by the engraving ‘Battle of Trafalgar - Conclusion of the Battle’ by James Walker, which in turn was based on a sketch by midshipman George Herbert, who fought at Trafalgar. Woodfine’s drawing process has a strong resonance with etchings and engravings of this particular period and the drawing/sculpture produced aimed to portray the post-battle situation of isolation, emptiness and decay through a personal interpretation of the Battle of Trafalgar. Aiming to explore the depiction of war historically and to portray its sense of destruction from a contemporary viewpoint, the final piece was exhibited in the Lily Lambert McCarthy collection at the Royal Naval Museum. The work is now owned by Victoria Preston.