Photo by Joshua Potter
On Wednesday the 4th of November, The Poetry Café in Covent Garden held its launch party for The Listening Forest exhibition, a new exhibition being held there until the 4th of February.
I know what you’re thinking: why is an exhibition taking place in a café? Well it’s not a bad question, but this isn’t just any café.
The Poetry Café is a place for creatives and thinkers to meet, have coffee, and be inspired to write, draw, paint, sculpt, or whatever else an artist does. That’s why it is there.
The exhibition itself is the work of Sophie Herxheimer and features prints, paper cuts (not the painful kind) and poems by the artist, some of which are selling for a few hundred pounds.
The work hanging on the walls of the Poetry Café is all black and white, using primarily water colour and/or black and white paper to create an eclectic range of images and feelings. Many of the paintings contain poems within them.
Situated in a relatively quiet street, one right turn away from the noises of Covent Garden’s pubs, the Poetry Café sits relatively unassuming. When you walk in the door you can see the artist’s word scattered throughout the café, on the walls and in frames, but also surrounding the ceiling lights and giving the word an interesting and rather unique look.
The exhibition continues downstairs where more pictures and poems grace the walls.
At the launch party, there was free wine and a reading of some of the artist’s work. Unfortunately, you will have to pay for your drinks, but it will definitely be worth it as you sip your coffee and get inspired by the artwork around you.
Sophie Herxheimer, artist, poet, illustrator, teacher, has had her work shown at the National Portrait Gallery in London, among other places. She has worked with the BBC and has recently published Over the Line and The New Concrete.
The Poetry Café is located at 22 Betterton Street, WC2H 9BX. They serve a variety of drinks and cakes, and their coffee is all Fairtrade.
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