Ely Artist Celebrates Milestone Birthday

Ely artist Ted Coney won’t be opening his popup gallery as usual at the beginning of April in 2024.

Although it has been open since 2008, this year he has been invited to have an exhibition at the Norris Museum, St Ives, Cambs. Instead – to celebrate his 80th birthday.

Entitled ‘Every Object Paints a Picture – works by Ted Coney ‘, the show will run from 30th March(Easter Saturday) until 22nd June.

Ted has been making paintings about family life for over fifty years and increasingly uses objects in his work to tell the story. Indeed, as well as the paintings, some of the objects used in the pictures will also be on display.

For instance, a painting about his grandmother and her four sisters called ‘Forget – Me – Nots’ (pictured) will also show the suitcases and objects he collected and appear in the painting. A set of objects were gathered together on a
single day in an East Yorkshire sea-side town that had connections with each sister.

Through this work, Ted hopes to demonstrate both his thoughts on dementia and the power of objects to aid memory.

During the course of the exhibition there will be talks and workshops, see the Norris Museum website for more details.