During the year of Hull City of Culture, 2017, not as part of any official programme, PS was put on by a group of artists to acknowledge the unique spirits of Paul Burwell and Sue Arrowsmith who had strongly contributed to the life and culture of Hull and who had both died in the city.
A collaboration between Anne Bean, Richard Wilson, Ansuman Biswas and Yol as well as works by Shaun Caton, Phil Wilson, Jo Millet, Rob Gawthrop, Kaffe Mathews, Dave Ellis, Lee Merril, Jez Riley French, Sohail Khan, Luke Poot, Espen Jensen, Helmut Lemke, Chris Gladwyn, Brian Gilson, Fergus Kelly and Miyako Narita were part of the programme.
The programme notes included these short bios:
Paul Burwell came to Hull in 2000 after purchasing the Kingston Rowing Club in Oak Road Playing Fields which he settled and used as a studio space until his untimely death in 2007. The art events he organised there are slowly achieving a legendary status in the oral history of Hull's cultural heritage. With his feet firmly planted in the shifting sands of free improvisation - he was a drummer and founder member of the London Musician's Collective - over the years he collaborated with poets, writers, musicians, performance artists, sculptors, film and video makers, dancers, instrument makers, pyrotechnicians, firemen, lecturers, librarians, students... and us.
In 2010 Sue Arrowsmith came seeking refuge having just been evicted from her home in London. She first made a reputation as a conceptual artist, in the 1970s making drawings and photographic works - reputedly one of the first artists to print directly onto canvas. One of her works was included in 'Conceptual Art in Britain 1964-1979,' last year at Tate Britain. Following a severe illness in the late 1980s, she carried on making work, but moved on to collages (many included materials collected from the mud of the Thames), wall hangings, wood carvings and decorative drums. Her early photographic work is with the Anthony Reynolds Gallery in London. Sue was actively involved in the Kingston Growing Club and its work to preserve the Burwell Oaks. She died in 2014.
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