The shack

Born in Gilbert and Ellice Islands in the Pacific, Rosemary Grimble was the daughter of Sir Arthur Grimble, a well known colonial administrator. She lived in Cyprus with her husband Adrian Seligman and worked for the Cyprus Review. She hardly ever uses colour in her drawings preferring linear black and white sketches, sometimes using only ink. This pen and ink drawing represents an aspect of the quintessentially Cypriot outdoor habitat as adopted by its current English dweller. A table, a wicker chair and an iron bed, standard Cypriot amenities of outdoor sleeping in summer, appear under a shack. Features such as a basket, a petrol lamp and a wooden tray with food are hanging from the matted roof and away from the ducks. Makeshift arrangements such as the improvised cupboard created by a metal barrel slit vertically further smack of Cypriotness. The thistle broom, many ducks nestling about and a much used DDT sprayer constitute additional markers of the Cypriot living environment. Instead, the box labeled ‘Ryvita’, another bearing the inscriptions ‘express’ and ‘this side up’ and a third labeled ‘with care’ belong to an altogether different category of objects which attest to the Britishness of the current occupant. The same applies to a pair of leather lace-up shoes, a patched up deck chair, a wireless, a suitcase, scattered bottles of wine and empty tins of food. In the background, two Cypriot peasants are labouring in the fields. The artist finds the untidiness of the setting most appealing to her taste as she pays extra attention to its detail.