How to Drink Your Tea

Tampopo Restaurant, Manchester, September 2001-January 2002

For this solo exhibition at Tampopo restaurant in Manchester, I explored the rituals involved in the Japanese Tea Ceremony. The act of drinking tea is a spiritual discipline, instilling the four precepts of peace, respect, purity and tranquillity. The ritual is something that is learned over time, a lifetime in fact, and cannot necessarily have a set of visual instructions, so in my work I aimed to capture the essence of some of the elements. As a guest at a tea ceremony, you will take time to admire everything that is presented to you. As you are given sweets, you will look at them closely to enjoy their presentation before taking one for yourself. I tried to capture this element of respect for the utensils and presentation in the images I produced. This work took the form of prints depicting key stages of the tea ceremony; I used subtle colours to evoke the sense of ritual and peace. The work featured in this exhibition, along with a new slide projection, will be showing at Phoenix Arts in Leicester, in May 2002 as part of The City Gallery touring program.

Click on the images below to view large version.