- Venue
- Griffin Rayne Gallery
- Location
- London
As those familiar with East London’s ‘art scene’ will know, the proliferation of temporary art spaces in Shoreditch, Hackney and beyond has become rife in recent years. Varying widely in scope and curatorial quality, an onslaught of short-lived exhibitions has transformed the aesthetic of ‘empty shops’, warehouses and industrial buildings into a transient, cultural landscape of events and makeshift white cubes. What results is a messy and highly unpredictable patchwork of objects and experiences that, at times, favours fashion and novelty over cultural longevity.
Amidst the cannibalistic clamour of the new; of new spaces, new artists and new curatorial conventions, there are, however, opportunities to engage with unique or rarely seen works in unusual, or informal settings. With more formal institutions, such as the Tate or the Barbican, charging increasingly expensive entrance fees, the magnetic pull of ‘free entry’ events and not-for-profit spaces is attractive to visitors, artists and curators alike. Whilst the unpredictable nature of new, or emergent spaces – in a city where time often feels limited or strangely compressed – can be off-putting; keeping an ear to the ground is advisable as, for art lovers or curious observers, London is full of unique opportunities to view and engage with accomplished works of art in inconspicuous, temporary locations.
One such opportunity, recently facilitated by the Griffin Rayne Gallery on Redchurch Street in Shoreditch, is the refreshing and visually sensitive exhibition of painting, photography and mixed media work – Now Is My Winter. On display for just over a week, this nuanced assemblage of wall-based imagery boasts original works by well-known practitioners such as Nigel Hall RA and Bernard Farmer, alongside exciting young artists such as Andrew Salgado and Jemma Appleby. As such, it offers a rare opportunity to see an array of skilful and culturally valuable works in an informal, ‘pop-up’ environment.
Taking the simple reality of seasonal change as its point of departure, Now Is My Winter privileges form and materiality over any weighty intellectual schema. By considering the sensuality of seasonal change, and its aesthetic impact on the natural and built environment; Griffin Rayne Gallery have produced an engaging and unapologetically visual exhibition that elicits a desire to perceive our surroundings in a more attentive and critical way.
Containing works that are ‘understated in their colouration, rarely straying beyond light or dark’; the show celebrates the magic and ambiguity of mark-making whilst proffering a subtle invitation to appreciate the beauty and brutality of the dark winter months. Blissfully avoiding any allusions to austerity or financial recession, these ‘understated’ works favour universal concerns over social or political realities. In turn, works such as Jemma Appleby’s Holon #6 (pictured) are refreshing in their imaginative (and, perhaps, vaguely escapist) tendency to transport the viewer into an ‘impossible place’ that is wilfully bizarre and oneiric.
Works from Appleby’s Holon series, amongst the strongest pieces in the show, translate the complex contortions of natural and man-made environments into a selection of monochromatic, charcoal drawings. Brimming with paradox and kaleidoscopic energy, they are confusing and contradictory, in that their implausible juxtapositions – the curves of Ron Arad’s Design Museum in Holon, Israel with the trunks of attenuated trees – create a landscape replete with both real and surreal elements. Exposing the ever changing texture of the physical landscape, they sit well in an exhibition preoccupied with seasonality and the ‘fleeting moments’ of stillness that art can often provide.
Similarly, as seen in images from Catherine Lindsay-Davies’ series self-defence, a palpable feeling of flux is portrayed in images that examine ‘the outcomes of human interaction with the natural world’. Subtly alluding to notions such as climate change and environmental pollution, we see brutal, architectural constructions conflate with the ethereal ripples of water, or the jagged textures of botanical life. By merging representational imagery with abstracted, and often overexposed, photographs of organic movement; Lindsay-Davies’ work contains a dream-like, and sometimes dystopic, quality that questions the impact of architecture and civilisation on the natural world.
In both Appleby and Lindsay-Davies work, there is then a shared preoccupation with universal concerns such as the friction between nature and the built environment, and the perpetual presence of change in our external surroundings. Consequently, more explicitly figurative works such as Maneka’s Disappearing Act (pictured) stand in contrast to works that are more environmentally and architecturally grounded.
If, as Griffin Rayne suggest, ‘one becomes so much more aware of the formation of landscape [in winter] when it is stripped back to its bare essentials’, then more figurative works, such as Maneka’s subtly distorted portraits, seem a little lost in a show that promotes an nuanced appreciation of our surroundings. Subsequently, to this reviewer, it is the images that are devoid of figures that really sing in this curatorial context. Without an explicit, human presence, these unknowable landscapes have an intrigue that, like the changing of the seasons, is mysterious and somewhat placeless. As a voyeur looking into these seductive, unpeopled terrains; the viewer is free to roam through the real and imagined landscapes of their own imaginations.
