Sean Edwards Portrait (for a screenplay) of Beth Harmon
Exhibition image for 2009 show at Limoncello, London
 |
| Richard Bevan Chess Club 2012 |
 |
| Installation view, Limoncello, 2009 |
In this ongoing project artist Sean Edwards invites artists, curators, writers, musicians and actors to read Walter Tevis' 1983 novel The Queen's Gambit and to produce a work in response to it. The novel follows the life Beth Harmon, an orphaned child who is discovered to be a chess prodigy, from the age of 8 through to adulthood. The novel was praised for the accuracy of its portrayals of the professional chess circuit and the internal workings of the mind of a chess player. Harmon has a lucid and almost visual sense of the powers the pieces exude over the board as she moves them into place.
Chess, and in particular children playing the game, are a recurring image in Edwards' work. He sees this project as a way to expand the life of this fascinating character beyond the 243 pages of the novel. The resulting works are studies - sketches towards a final work that may never be realised.
 |
| SaraMackillop String Piece 2009 |
The screenplay of this novel has had a troubled past; numerous failed attempts have been made to turn the novel into a film but never has it come to fruition. Most recently Heath Ledger had been working on it as his directorial debut at the time of his death in 2008.
