Gallery Visits - 21 September 2013

Mall Gallery

Still Alive – an exhibition of contemporary still life painters by members of the Federation of British Artists.  (catalogue) 

As my series painting is of still life, I was particularly interested in the artists’ statements and why they chose this particular genre:

Lucy McKie “appreciate ordinary objects and realise the beauty that surrounds us all the time, yet can seem too subtle to merit our attention”.

Paul Gildea “what it has is itself and the thoughts of the artist … not like traffic, horses, children or other animals”

Lilias August “Humble objects are evocative.  Still life will always be alive because there is more to it than meets the eye – it is intimate yet wordly, simple yet powerful”.

Also, in the essay accompanying the exhibition by Professor Anthony Savile, King’s College London, he says (albeit somewhat pretentiously, as he himself acknowledges!) “When we set aside our practical concerns, we always experience our surroundings in a certain light.  We find them now comforting, now menacing; sometimes puzzling, sometimes refractory and so on.  One remarkable talent of the artist is to be able to show us the light in which we experience our world and its contents, so that the very way in which we view them (generally unconsciously) is itself something that we are consciously brought to see by and in the image.  That is what makes the painting expressive, where its subject matter is not.”

In different ways, the quotes above seem to sum up my feelings about why I want to create art in general (and not just still life, although the comments are about this genre).  It is a way of looking at things that a non-artist would not – in my case (for the series), seeing a bag of shopping as interesting in itself; the way the colours contrast, the way the packaging changes the shape and colour of its contents, seeing the plastic and paper as interesting in themselves and not just a covering; the textures of each object.

Anyway, back to the exhibition!

Having reviewed many of the works in this exhibition online before attending, one thing that (although obvious) really caught my attention was the scale of the individual paintings.  Viewing images digitally, they are all roughly the same size which they are not in real life and they does impact on your viewing experience.

One artist in particular whose work was much smaller than I anticipated was Barbara Richardson; her paintings are between 25 – 40cm, yet from the catalogue they appear much larger.  These smaller images draw you in, inviting you into their “personal space” to look more closely at the detail, the forms and the colours.  While in the past (in my own work) I favoured a larger scale of painting, it was quite a surprise to me (again, thought not sure why when you think about it in more detail) that I was very drawn to these much smaller paintings.

Lucy McKie’s paintings use very traditional objects (glass, fruit, cloth, ceramics) to display her skill at depicting textures, but her work is so subtle with very soft textures and colour, it is almost as if viewed with a very slight filter with the diffused light and (close up) soft edges, even to the man-made objects.  Her neutral colours are so rich and smooth, they set off the relatively small amounts of more saturated colour without needing stronger contrasts.

Paul Gildea’s “Propped Cloths – Study in Blue” is a much larger painting and catches your eye as soon as you walk into the gallery.  While obviously a staged arrangement (as are most still lifes, but this one more obviously especially created just to paint) it has a freshness, to me, created by the simple use of colour and the close attention paid to the way different types of cloth fold, bend and crease.  While it may have been more dramatic to have a different colour background, the artist has chosen a mid to light-toned different shade of blue to contrast against the richer blues of the cloth.  The background itself is quite roughly painted but uses the addition of faint black and white lines to add a spatial depth and sense of space to give additional form to the sinuous curves of the fabric sculpture.

Lilias August had four watercolour paintings – again small in scale – of working objects (brushes, chisel, hinges) realistically depicted against painted backgrounds of folded paper and cardboard.  She states that she began painting objects when working as a project artist during the building of a Cathedral tower because she could see the significance of the individual components in the general scheme of things.  Again, the objects that she paints are everyday but the arrangement is not just one of “found” objects but carefully arranged (sometimes in rows) from an overhead viewpoint to show each object’s individual form and qualities.

The Sunday Times Watercolour Exhibition

As all the paintings in this exhibition are shown together on the four walls of the largest gallery here, you can see every painting from the centre of the room.  Still thinking about the impact size, tone, colour, etc, has from a distance, and when included in a room full of other paintings, I sat down on the bench in the centre of the room and just looked round the exhibits.

From this view, I thought about which paintings I wanted to have a closer look at.  Some with most impact from a distance were those with strong tonal / colour contrasts and more basic forms, but when viewed close up, there was nothing else to keep my attention.  Also those that were more abstract from a distance – what is it that is painted?  Is the painting an abstraction or investigation?  Those I felt I wanted to explore more – I wanted to get close to see the texture, detail, and to see if I could work out how they had achieved an effect or finish.

The three I liked the most were:

David Poxon – Thames Van in a Wood

This was a representational piece packed with colour, texture and detail.  The strong colour attracts you first – the strong rusty-reds contrasted with peeling blue and green paint.  The next thing you see if the negative space – the very dark shadow of the inside structure of the rusting van creates strong lines against the background, especially the “nibbled” section of the roofline in the top left.  Looking more closely, the texture is so interesting – sections of splattered paint, layers of colour and effective backwashes, granulation and white spots (possibly bleach? – too diffuse to be gum arabic).  Very delicate and spidery lines have been added to create the sharp edges of rusting metal.  The last thing I thought about was the colour consonance – repetition of the blues and greens of the metal in the ground and the rusting red used to create the loose forms of the shrubs.

Next to this painting on the wall was Luke Elwes “Glitter”, and abstract painting which immediately reminded me of leaves on water, or glints of light on water.  Looking more closely, the background is created of a variegated wash of neutral grays with hints of blue and pink wash. Different colours and textures have been added to the seemingly random shapes and ripples.  I could not find a replication of this painting online but http://www.lukeelwes.com/paintings/recent-work/on-paper/ is a very similar concept.  I was considering how the artist had constructed this piece and I think he may have painted different colours and forms onto paper, tore it up and then created a collage which he then recreated in watercolour.

My final favourite was David Firmstone’s “ Fire marked the land like a language” (prize winner – Vintage Classics Prize for Cover Art).  This really ticked all the boxes of an interesting painting; from a distance the visual impact is very arresting because of the strong, simple forms, tonal contrast and limited palette (black/grey shades, buttery cream/yellow and bold orange “fire” up the middle of a stylised, domed hill, and the simplified/symbolised undulations of land with striations of colour.

This artist exhibited great skill in his treatment of the washes – the colour swirls round in the ground like ink on water contrasted by the visible brush strokes to give the land its form.

The final interest was the symbolic nature of the painting – although I am not sure what it represents in the artist’ mind; two friesan cows on the top of the hill, with the flock of birds seemingly exploding from the hill swirling around and the line of fire and smoke.  It really made me think and I stood in front of it for quite some time (probably to the annoyance of others!).

Derwent Art Prize – the inaugural show for works created in pencil.

This exhibition was in the three smaller rooms of the gallery and again, thinking of impact in a gallery, this does force you to explore more.  Because you can’t see everything at once, and so just view your favourites, you are forced to explore each painting more.

There was a lot of work here I found very interesting; the range of techniques, sizes and mark-making were incredible:

Borislav Varadinov - Chain of memory nests  (graphite on gesso covered corrugated cardboard).  This was one of the larger works – although I had nothing to measure with, I estimated the piece was approximately 5 feet wide by 18” high (actually 180 x 50 so not far out!).  The work is a sinuous string of different types of nests, some empty, some containing eggs/apple cores, etc, with interconnecting branches and vines leading through the drawing with different types of leaves.  I wondered about the symbolism which, to me, brought to mind new life and the passage of time over the seasons.  The combination of detailed drawing over the textured card and gesso produced an additional layer of interest to the pencil work which, combined with the unusual, and unfinished, rough-edged cardboard ground produced a truly stunning artwork.

While researching further, this painting is one of a series (of eight) entitled “unpacked thoughts” completed this year – all pencil on corrugated cardboard.  I found this series so interesting with its themes of trees, branches and nests and wanted to understand the artist’s motivation for this series.  While on his website, I came across this statement from him:

Dear friends,

I told you before about a drawing that I uploaded to the Derwent Artprize contest. The drawing is currently exhibited in the Mall Galleries in London, and I feel very proud about having a piece of mine at this place. I couldn't be more happy when I received some feedback about it today. A spectator sent me a picture of "Chain of memory nests" and commented 'hi, i recently visited the mall Gallery, and saw your stunning 'chain of memory nests', and after visiting your website saw that it was part of the 'unpacked thoughts' series. I wanted to use your collection as inspiration for one of my University projects. I was wondering if you could tell me the inspiration behind the series and what the overall message of the pieces is. Thanks a lot.' I feel blessed to inspire other artists and I am grateful for the feedback. As an artist, life can be lonely and tiresome. And often I wonder if what I do really matters. To receive feedback like this is a true blessing.

With gratitude, Borislav

While this doesn’t actually tell me his thoughts behind the series, it made me think about the feedback you receive as an artist.  As Borislav said, life can be lonely (especially as a long distance student!) and I suppose once you have put your work out in a gallery, you very rarely get to know what people think about your piece.  There was a discussion on the OCA student site recently about contacting artists, and seeing this artist’s reaction to feedback made me think we should probably do it more often.

Danny Lyon – Animal Skull Life Study 

This large study attracted me mainly because of the way the artist had treated the paper.  The image itself is detailed charcoal and white pastel but what interested me more, and is probably not visible in the link above, is how the artist has distressed the paper in the bottom right between the image and the edge of the paper.  It has either been peeled, or really heavily erased, to destroy the surface texture, giving a juxtaposition between the detailed, realistic surface texture of the skull and the paper texture.

Chrys Allen: two works “Walk in Progress”  (first prize winner) and “Life Drawing Continued” 

Walk in Progress is a graphite drawing on one side of a very long roll of paper.  In the gallery, it was displayed differently to that shown on the website, and I sat for a while and sketched the arrangement in my notebook:

The roll of paper is textured, almost like watercolour paper in a off-white colour.  At first I thought it was charcoal but it is actually graphite images of landscapes – some simply linear while others are tonal, some appear linked, others random with one section merging into the next.  This is such a three-dimensional piece, exhibited on a low (12”?) plinth in the centre of the gallery, that it is really a cross between a sculpture and a drawing, displayed in sweeping curves held together with simply bulldog clips.  You need to take a “walk in progress” around the work just to see it all, and took at, in and around it from all angles.  Although the drawing is just on one side of the paper, as some sections when displayed appear on the inside of the sculptural form, nothing can be seen on one plane and the whole image is fragmented (would be interesting to see how the drawing appears differently when seen as a continuous whole).

After looking at this for some considerable time, it reminded me of Chinese works on a scroll, and the face that the perspective is all on one plane.  My one negative thought on this was, although it is a great exhibition piece, the market must be limited for such works, purely because of the space taken up!

The second of Chrys Allen’s works, Life Drawing Continued’ is along the  same vein as Walk in Progress, but this time comprises life drawing studies of both men and women on both sides of the paper.  The images here are much lighter in tone, drawn with spidery, wandering lines, with some images overlapping the others. 

Also included amongst the figure drawings are other studies: I think anatomical studies as well as animal skulls.  These are darker in tone and are numbered (eg P256/251/250/252) – I wondered where these studies/numbers correlated with a publication such as Grey’s Anatomy (although I don’t believe this includes animal studies).

This exhibit was shown on a much higher plinth (approx hip height) and so gave a completely different viewpoint to the previous work.  I found the angle of view changes the images completely, as do the curves of the paper, shadow areas and highlights from gallery lights.  This image is also more tightly coiled, and I wonder whether it was the artist or the curator of the exhibition who chose where to clip the paper and how it was displayed.

After visiting, I read Katherine Tyrrell’s review of these exhibitions on her “making a mark”  blog and have to agree how impressed I was with the quality of work on display at these three exhibitions.