- Venue
- The Art Works Galleries
- Location
We accept these days that to attempt to represent ‘England' visually is a contentious undertaking and acknowledge that we are dealing, more accurately with plural ‘England's.' What we may still be tempted to do, however, is to imagine the boundaries drawn between these England's to be traditionally imagined ones: the boundary that most readily springs to mind is still the North-South divide.
What an exhibition like ‘NE by SW' highlights is that what joins the inhabitant of a particular England to his or her natural neighbour is less geographical proximity and more shared interests. This exhibition is the result of two rural artists' networks: Northumbria-based The Aurora Project and Devon Artsculture, in which the works displayed are twinned with those of their closest counterparts.
Whereas the title of the exhibition may literally suggest polar opposites, this is evidently far from the case. One corner occupied by animals painted by Torrington-based Shan Miller and Northumberland-inspired Joanne Wishart particularly demonstrates this point right down to the unfinished wood used for frames.
In both artists' works the animals are the single imposing focus: in some cases close to life size. The painting style of both Miller and Wishart ascribe to their animal subjects a character that suggests a rural artist engaging with their familiar environment rather than the casually-informed observations of a visitor.
There are differences, however, Wishart's wild hares and curlews are attractive in their wildness and their untamed nature comes across through the surfaces of her canvasses. The majority of Miller's subjects – pigs, cows and sheep – are, within the context of the ‘England' which she occupies, commodities, and are accordingly celebrated in their docile and subjugated nature and imbued with the respect that acknowledges their necessity. The rational painting method, reminiscent of photorealism suits it well.
While it is not rare to see rural subjects in art what we are most used to seeing is a city-based artist's traditionally romanticised view of the countryside. Can we assume the same of the rural artist's interpretation? Mary Toon and Helen Cowans are not compelled to turn to their actual environs as complete inexhaustible muse but turn inwards to their imaginations and out towards other cultures and disciplines for their textile work. One detects not just the drama of, but a sober respect for, the extremity of the elements in the land-and-seascapes of Roger Coulam and Barry Clasper.
While there is an understood shared language between the twinned works themselves does this language translate accurately to its audience: city-dwellers in a city-centre gallery? Shan Miller certainly has responded to rural issues such as single farmers and the Foot and Mouth crisis of 2001. Perhaps if some aspects of her ‘England's' language are communicated, the real ground made will not have been from South West to North East, but rather the distance between two Englands: one presenting the works, one displaying them.
‘NE by SW' is exhibiting at The Art Works Galleries, Stepney Bank, Ouseburn, Newcastle upon Tyne until the end of August.
