- Venue
- Vilma Gold
- Location
- United Kingdom
★★★ out of ★★★★
“Such paintings became surrogates; willing partners in a game of role-play.” – Vilma Gold press release, 2013
One key interpretation of ‘Nicholas Byrne: Roleplay’ suggests that the canvases have been rented by Byrne to produce paintings performing in a sublime production of an Oscar Wilde play or maybe ‘Miss Saigon’. The highly expressive mark-making evident in the use of oil paint; on the majority copper surfaces; is nothing short of intrinsic and and Romantic. Dare to say, influences from Gustav Klimt (b. 1862 d.1918) can be found within Byrne’s present take on the Austrian artist’s natural-world answer to modernism. Each painting’s figure-heads are vitally interlocked and charming, recalling Old Master depictions of debauched scenes of woo but also comfort.
In times of astute contemporary art (sadly including painting) works such as these provide a necessary balance of the figurative and the abstract, which only brighten the prospects that contemporary painting have to look forward to.
There is a slight desire to see the exhibition without the ‘Fan’ painting due to it’s intruding size and extraneous visual imagery, however as mentioned earlier the exhibition seems to thrive in costumed drama.
Although the clever use of oil paint on copper canvas has been used to remarkable effect, the most stunning paintings are the two produced purely with oil paint on linen (‘Roleplay No. 3’ and ‘Roleplay No. 1′ – see image) because of their counterparts’ reduced ‘artificial intelligence’ with the painting media. They seem the star lead roles in this theatrical performance.
Throw away any disputes that the paintings look as though they have been crafted with make-up and applied in a fashionable manner because the chosen palette in Byrne’s itinerary accentuate their subjects’ feelings of repression (‘Roleplay No. 4’), hopefullness (‘Roleplay No. 7’, ‘Roleplay No. 6’) and uncertainty (‘Role’, ‘Roleplay No. 1’, ‘Roleplay No. 8’).
In ‘Roleplay’ Byrne exhibits his best paintings since his duo show ‘Faces’ at Dependence in Brussels with Nora Schultz, and we hope to see more work of a similar persuasion in the future.
