Brick Lane monotypes
ALTAB ALI AND BRICK LANE
7 monotypes by ALICE SIELLE
Brick Lane street sign 2011 monotype, graphite 48x63cn 19×25”
These monotypes were made for the film Cable Street to Brick Lane by Phil Maxwell and Hazuan Hashim which marks the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, when local residents prevented Oswald Mosley and his fascist Blackshirts from marching in Whitechapel on 4th October 1936.
For centuries London’s East End has been host to successive waves of immigration. In the 18th century Huguenots arrived, fleeing religious persecution and settled in Whitechapel. They were highly skilled weavers and prospered, and in 1743 built the church on the corner of Fournier Street and Brick Lane.
By the 19th century the Huguenots had moved on, and the Jews arrived, fleeing the pogroms in Eastern Europe. In 1897 the church became an Orthodox Jewish synagogue.
During the 20th Century the Jews gradually moved out of the area and the Bangladeshi community increased, and in 1976 the synagogue became the Brick Lane Mosque.
On 4th May 1978 Altab Ali, a Bengali cloth worker , was attacked and murdered by racist thugs as he walked home from work in Brick Lane.
Umbra Sumus monotype, graphite, 48x63cm 19×25” 2011
Umbra Sumus – we are shadows – the inscription under the 1743 sundial of the original Huguenot church, and still there today.
Monotypes are original works and are not reproducible like prints. There are 2 methods:
A flat surface is evenly covered with printing ink using a roller. The paper is placed face down on the ink and any marks made on the back of the paper form the image on the front.
A flat surface is evenly covered in the same way. The image is made by scraping away the ink, and transferred to the paper by pressure. By this method, a fainter second image is possible.
These monotypes were made by the first method, on Japanese paper. The series is framed. www.sielle.uk