Mystery Languages Part II - Art exhibition and Book Launch

Mystery Languages Part II is a collaboration between Sheffield artists Norman Anderson, Alison Churchill and Ranaa Farooq, and writer Rafael Cruz, based in Cambridgeshire.

The exhibition continues and deepens the dialogue started in the first Mystery Languages project and exhibition which took place in S1 Artspace in Sheffield in the summer of 2023.

Through artwork, performances and a book, Part II aims to engage various expressions of a universal and unifying energy, and further explore themes of meaning, recovery and transformation.

Norman Anderson’s abstract paintings, rolls of script and, more recently, sculptures derive from sound – an inner vibration and a language which suddenly became accessible to him after a stroke 6 years ago.

This is a language in which he is fluent, but its provenance and meaning is a mystery to him. However, his felt sense is that it conveys an ancient wisdom which has not only helped in his own recovery but which is relevant today, and may help others in their own recovery.

Alison Churchill’s “water marks” are a language of a kind, arising on the cusp of thought and form, appearing, dissolving and reassembling. These marks have no explicit “message”, yet seem full of meaning and life-energy.

They were first seen and felt in mesmerising dancing patterns on water surfaces and have over time become embodied. They are also informed by her practice of zen and zen calligraphy. She will be making new work in response to Norman’s sculptural forms.

Both artists’ work, displayed on Instagram, caught the attention of Rafael Cruz, who with his interest in the relationship between art and science, in languages and their derivation, in meaning and culture, philosophy and the Tao, became fascinated with Norman’s “mystery language” and his story of recovery and transformation.

Rafael’s interpretation and articulation of the work helped shape it into the collaborative project and exhibition in July 2023, and has now culminated in a book.

Ranaa Farooq has recently joined the collaboration, bringing with her a different aspect of this source energy. Her abstract work explores the subconscious as a language of its own—one that emerges through marks, movement, and intuition.

By quietening the conscious mind, she allows unseen energies and emotions to take form on the canvas. As a former doctor and current life coach, she is fascinated by the mind-body connection and how unspoken, internal languages shape our perception. She hopes her work invites the viewer to engage with these deeper, often mysterious, layers of experience.