There’s someone at the door(s)

You may have spotted the striking new additions to Bridport’s iconic Lyric Theatre on Barrack Street: a vibrant set of murals on the front doors of the Lyric as well as the side doors on Rax Lane. These creations were painted at the end of February by two Bridport artists working in collaboration.

Working in a multitude of styles and materials from fine art figurative charcoal drawing to graphic design in spray paint, Marina Renee-Cemmick makes drawings, paintings, large-scale murals and performances that are based around the human body. Marina grew up in Bridport and was hugely influenced by her early exposure to dance and performance. Following studies at Bournemouth Arts University, Glasgow School of Art, Kyoto (Japan) and Florence, Marina has since moved to London with a full scholarship place to styudy an MA in Drawing at The Royal Drawing School. She is part of Edinburgh street art collective the TooMuchFunClub and a member of the WOM Collective, an all-women street art group hosting exhibitions and street jams. She has exhibited in solo and group shows across Scotland, London, the Southwest and Kyoto, Japan. 

Niki McCretton, owner and artistic director of The Lyric Theatre, worked creatively with Marina as a young person in Bridport Youth Dance and BACstage Youth Theatre. Having enjoyed watching Marina’s creative career flourish, Niki is particularly fascinated by her street art, and was interested to see if some of her work could happen in Bridport. She offered Marina The Lyric’s doors to paint on, which already had started to be painted by Imi Neylan last summer. Imi is an emerging young artist based in Bridport, who approached Niki last summer along with some of her friends, expressing a keen interest in creating some outside artwork. Niki had also offered them The Lyric’s front doors to work on, and Imi created a number of portraits, as part of the Portrait Challenge which The Lyric was running at the time.

Marina and Imi worked in collaboration to create the vibrant artworks on The Lyric’s doors, researching and sharing ideas, Marina training Imi in using spray paints for the first time rather than paints.

Delphine Jones from The Lyric said, “Their bold designs are in turns beautiful and fun, and offer viewers an uplifting feeling of hope and reconnection for the days ahead. We are absolutely thrilled with the results and so are the public, it seems – lovely comments have been flooding in. A huge thank you to Marina and Imi.”

This is the latest in the projects The Lyric has been facilitating throughout the pandemic. The next project will be starting at the end of March through April, when The Lyric will be taking art and performance out of the building into areas of the town with various artists. Public performances have not been able to be staged inside The Lyric Theatre since March 2020 and the team are awaiting further news from the government regarding further lifting of restrictions.