- Venue
- The Crypt, Saint Marylebone Parish Church
- Starts
- Monday, January 11, 2016
- Ends
- Saturday, March 26, 2016
- Address
- 17 Marylebone Rd, London NW1 5LT
- Location
- London
- Organiser
- Paula MacArthur & Wendy Saunders
Slippery & Amorphous
“For the painter, the codes and languages of painting, like the paint itself, are, by their very nature, slippery and amorphous.” Rosa Lee, Threads
Phillip Allen
Simon Carter
Nadine Feinson
Paul Galyer
Paula MacArthur
James Petrucci
Alison Pilkington
Wendy Saunders
Ilona Szalay
Mimei Thompson
Mon-Fri 9-5, Sat 9-4 (Sun closed)**
Opening reception: Thursday 14 January 2016 6 – 8pm
Closing talk: Saturday 26 March 2-3pm
**Very occasionally the crypt closes for private meetings, please phone ahead to check times if you are making a special journey to avoid any disappointment on either 020 7935 7315 or 07809 330592.
Press release
http://www.contemporarybritishpainting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Slippery-Amorphous.pdf
Essay by Katrina Blannin
http://www.contemporarybritishpainting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Natural-Abstraction-by-Katrina-Blannin.pdf
Paint is slippery stuff. Fluid and watery or viscous and buttery; it is difficult to handle and challenges the painter to control it, pin it down, fix it.
The painters in this exhibition draw parallels between the slipperiness of their medium and the slipperiness of their mode of expression. They attempt to communicate what is unseen, the things which are in flux, indefinable, even invisible and felt rather than known, learned or copied. Rosa Lee said in her 2003 essay * “…it is clear that the ‘language’ of painting does not readily lend itself to the making of direct statements. It is arguably an art of pure interpretation. For the painter, the codes and languages of painting, like the paint itself, are, by their very nature, slippery and amorphous.”
Consciously avoiding didacticism, these painters offer honest expressions and seek an authentic response from the viewer. The language of painting, unlike literature, does not easily communicate definite statements; more akin to a musician’s – the painter’s process is improvised and more intuitive. It is often ambiguous and open to multiple or misinterpretations. These painters both imitate and invent; they do not rely on simply creating an illusion but allow it to collapse and dissolve. By omitting or actively erasing visual information, they allow the imagination to enter.
We are aware of the accretion of marks over time and get a sense of the gestures which created them. We can imagine ourselves moving as the artist moves while they pour, scrub, stroke and splash on the colour. We feel we have a glimpse into the mind of the artist and can share in their painterly investigations. The surfaces invite us to touch, or at least get up close to study the marks and adjustments. This provides an insight into how the surface may have shifted throughout its development.
Whilst the paint creates an illusion it is also unmistakably paint; in this way the painting gives us a window onto an imagined world and determinedly remains a concrete object. Flitting between imagination and the physical object, the viewer plays with the nature of perception. These paintings suggest improvisation both by artist and viewer; the viewer brings their own experience and imagination, translating what they see into their own internal language.
These painters explore the borderland between the real and the imagined; they give us just enough, the essentials we need to get a sense of the ideas they are investigating. However they don’t offer us any direct answers, but rather encourage us to question both image and ourselves, making us aware that we only ever see through our own eyes, with our own accumulated history.
* Rosa Lee essay ‘Threads‘ Chapter 6, Unframed ed. by Rosemary Betterton pub. I.B.Tauris 2004
Curated and organised by Wendy Saunders and Paula MacArthur
http://www.wendymsaunders.co.uk/ [email protected]
http://www.paula-macarthur.com/ [email protected]
