- Venue
- The Hepworth
- Location
- Yorkshire
Clare Woods’ new paintings in The Unquiet Head at The Hepworth Wakefield are full of colour and movement, on a monumental scale which mirrors their subject matter.
Woods’ work examines the elemental power of the landscape and our emotional relationship to it: working from images of Brimham Rocks and Ilkley Moor, Woods’ new paintings for The Unquiet Head exhibition hold a dialogue with the accompanying works of eminent British artists who were inspired by these wild and untamed places: Barbara Hepworth, John Piper, Paul Nash and Graham Sutherland.
Woods’ paintings exude an uneasy tension, revealing and concealing anthropomorphic dimensions in the facets of the rocks, alluding to Woods’ interest in the supernatural aspect of natural forms. Her masterful use of enamel paints on aluminium imbues the paintings (some of them on a vast scale) with a great sense of power and mystery. Many painters have attempted to explore the point where figuration and abstraction meet, not always with such successful results as Woods. The forms in Woods’ paintings shift and change as the viewer changes position, the strong colours adding to the sense of atmosphere in the images. The sensuous surfaces of the thickly applied enamel make these paintings enormously aesthetically satisfying, both close-up and while appreciating their full drama from further away.
Woods’ paintings explore the liminal spaces between reality and imagination, rawness and subtlety, the physical and the ethereal, creating a visually stunning exhibition which is equally full of intellectual depth.
Clare Woods The Unquiet Head is at The Hepworth Wakefield now until 29th January 2012, FREE ADMISSION, Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 5pm. Closed on Mondays except school and bank holiday Mondays 10am – 5pm. www.hepworthwakefield.org
