By Ellena Louise Ryan.
John Hansard Gallery in Southampton is currently exhibiting a collection of Aaron Williamson’s work, spanning his career.
This includes pieces from the Outlandish Collective, a group of disabled artists from New Forest, who made works between 1976-1982 and The Disabled Avant-Garde with Katherine Araniello (2006-2019).
The exhibition features landscapes and seascapes, which are generally dark in colour and ominous – gruelling, substantial, open to interpretation.
There is an array of intriguing multi-media installations, featuring ‘the daily absurdities, challenges and barriers faced by disabled people.’
Williamson, born 1960, who studied at Brighton Polytechnic and the University of Sussex, began making art about disability upon becoming profoundly deaf, and has since made more than 300 works through mediums such as performance art, installations and video.
The two works ‘Seven White Sticks stuck on the coast’ and ‘Tin Ears’ stood out. Both works seem to represent the way the disabled community is often ignored in society and infrastructure.
Hanging objects, such as a bag and statements about disability visibility and validity, perhaps imply that barriers against disabled people are implicit in society, a natural evil like a corroding cliff-face that falls apart as it struggles to accommodate its weight.
The colours and spacious nature of the exhibition offer an exuberant introduction to the erratically brilliant nature of Williamson’s other work. These ideas also threading through the second exhibition, Williamson’s work on The Disabled Avant-Garde with Katherine Araniello.
There is a satirical glow to Williamson’s works. The Disabled Avant-Garde showcases a selection of mundane objects such as takeaway containers and an embroidered rooster tea towel of the same name hanging off the wall. The exhibition finishes with a 70-minute length ironic film reel with bombastic characters. An interesting spectacle, seemingly mocking the mundane, abstracting the everyday experience of many disabled people. A fantastic, and at times eyebrow-raising exhibition, in the best way imaginable. A sight to see for sure.
The experience of Williamson’s work is further enhanced by the helpful leaflets provided in each exhibition room (also available in large print for those with visual impairments) upon which Williamson claims a narrative vehicle to showcase ‘the historical omission of disabled artists from cultural history’.
The exhibition of Aaron Williamson’s work, which is curated by John Hansard Gallery’s Ros Carter, and Winchester School of Art’s Prof Larry Lynch, is available in the John Hansard Gallery, from 4th October 2025, until 10th January 2026.
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