The Eternal Rocks Beneath in Thornton

A new Wuthering Heights-inspired exhibition opens today, October 4 in Thornton:

The Eternal Rocks Beneath
Curated by Rosie McAndrew
October 4-27
South Square Centre, Thornton

“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: Time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.”

The turbulent nature of the Yorkshire moors often inspired the Brontë sisters writing, most explicitly in  ‘Wuthering Heights’, whose name literally describes it. In this exhibition, Bradford artist Rosie McAndrew celebrates the natural & supernatural themes through the imagery within Emily Brontë’s ‘Wuthering Heights’.

The Character of Cathy Earnshaw associates her identity, happiness and romantic relationships with the wild intensity of the surrounding moors. She describes it as a place where she feels truly able to be ‘half-savage and hardy, and free’. She prefers it to heaven and by choice spends her afterlife wandering there. Once her ghost breaks through the physical and metaphorical barrier of the window she is able to achieve what she couldn’t in her lifetime: eternity bound together with Heathcliff on the moors, away from societal restriction.

Drawing on her own fondness for the novel, Rosie has responded, transforming the gallery space by constructing a multi-media installation exploiting sight, smell and light to create two immersive environments which takes the viewer into the mind of Cathy Earnshaw, alive and in the afterlife. As much as possible of the artwork was made using recycled or eco-friendly materials.

Rosie McAndrew is an artist and illustrator born and living in Bradford, she graduated from a BA in Illustration at Anglia Ruskin University. Rosie is interested in the intersection between music, film, pop culture and literature. Rosie has received an artist bursary funded by Arts Council England from South Square and has chosen to focus on Wuthering Heights and create her first a gallery installation.

The Telegraph & Argus has further information:

 Wuthering Heights is a book close to the artist's heart who first read it as a child and later studied it during A Levels.
The classic novel Wuthering Heights follows the turbulent relationship between Heathcliff, an orphan who is taken home to Wuthering Heights on impulse, and Catherine Earnshaw, a girl whose mother died delivering her and who becomes Heathcliff's companion.
The supernatural room, lit up by UV rays, will also feature ghost stories to tie in with the spooky theme for Halloween.
The artist said: "I hope it reads as a celebration of all I love about the book.
"All of the Brontës wrote about their environment. There's a quote in the moors room from Charlotte which says the book is a product of the Moors because Emily herself was as well. The book itself, I think she described it as being as 'knotty as a root of heath' and the book itself is very moor like. (Natasha Meek)