Macabre Meanderings

Playground (acrylic on canvas). Courtesy of the artist.

From 26th July until 30th September 2011, BRINK will be showcasing a small selection of works by Stratford-based artist, Andrew Christopher at Kenilworth Wines.

                                       

The artist, who studied at Jacob Kramer (Leeds College of Art) and London Guildhall University, has exhibited nationwide and has recently held his solo show 'Telling Tales' at Gallery150 in Leamington Spa -and what telling tales they are. 

In the Vino Veritas Showcase, BRINK will be presenting two works from this series. The first is an acrylic on canvas piece, entitled 'Playground'. The inner ear immediately perceives the echoing sounds of children at play. The flashes of the colours of infantile nightmares and blurry shadows evoke that grimy, heavy feel of those never-ending days at school, almost alluding to the fact that childhood is both a beautiful, curious and intensely terrifying state, perhaps even dangerous. 

Here you linger on a knife’s edge. There is a sense of the oblivion and blind spontaneity of youth; how a child can be in one instant angelic, and then in another incredibly animalistic and cruel. One has the uncanny feeling that, beneath the surface, something sinister is lurking in the shadows or is about to happen. The fiery, almost foreboding shadow of the trees, the eerie light and unnatural colours of what appears to be a polluted sky remind us again of an impending doom. 

However, playing on the susceptibility of the onlooker's mind, the artists gives us no clues as to what this may be. You cannot tell if you are looking through the eyes of another or your own. It is a story in the making and it is you, the viewer, who must finish the tale.

The Crying Man at Goya's Tree (ink on paper). Courtesy of the artist.

The second work on show is an intricately detailed pen and ink drawing, called 'The Crying Man at Goya's Tree'. Here we find a myriad of references and with them a myriad of questions bubble to the surface.  

On a branch to the right we see a baboon quietly observing a rather disconcerting scene. A boy sits on a rock head in hands, his dog by his side; a man sits sobbing at the foot of a dead tree; two white doves are perched upon a branch, while in the background a rather suspect Ronald McDonald is hanging from the tree, his arm still held in what appears to be his customary friendly wave, but with an ominous finger raised upwards.

The references to domesticity – the boy, the pet, the father – and the absence of a mother figure may imply that our ‘nuclear family’ is not quite what it seems or how it should be.

Are they mourning for the economic crisis and the downfall of Capitalism? Are they awaiting a peace that never arrives? Did they kill “everyones’ favourite clown”?

It is not a post-apocalyptic scene because they are surrounded by grass, hills and leafy trees, but the dying tree and the reference to the multinational colossal could refer to the destruction that many corporations reap on the resources of the world. But, as with plate 39 from Francisco Goya’s, Los Desatres de la Guerra, entitled Grande hazaña! Con muertos! (Great deeds! Against the dead!),  it could also allude to a more Tolstoyan view of non-violent action against oppression, underlining the futility, cowardice and emptiness of such atrocious acts.

If we then go on to investigate the ancient Egyptian symbolism of the Baboon we come across the bloodthirsty underworld deity, Babi, famous for feasting on entrails. Indeed, the Egyptians’ believed  that baboons (the Alpha-males at least) were dead and actually the reincarnation of deceased rulers. Believed to be the first born son of Osiris, the god of the dead, Babi devoured the souls of the wicked after they were judged by Ma’at, the embodiment of truth and order.

Maybe, our Baboon is waiting in the wings to devour them all.

Sarah Silver

On show at:

Kenilworth Wines, 14 Talisman Square, Kenilworth, Warwickshire CV8 1JB.

For further information please contact: brinkevents@gmail.com

Jen Manning and Mick Rafferty at Gallery150

From 19th July – 31st  July 2011, Gallery150 will be hosting the solo shows of Jen Manning and Mick Rafferty.

Red Poppy Acrylic on boxed canvas:  50.5 x 40.5 cm

Originally from West Sussex, Jen Manning currently lives in Warwickshire, working as a self-employed artist, painting portraits and commissions for private and corporate clients. Mainly self-taught, the artist predominantly works in acrylics covering a broad range of subjects, including the Warwickshire countryside, domestic life, flowers, and landscapes.  Primarily a realist artist, her work captures not only the detail and accuracy of a subject, but also emotions, with distortion towards abstraction and the contemporary.

Through the use of fresh vibrant colours and expressive imagery, her works primarily depict an escape from reality. Shadow and light are the particular details that bring her work to life. And whilst some of her subjects may appear ‘dark’, they actually allude to hope even in the darkest of places.

In ‘Reflections on Life and Nature’, an exhibition dedicated to the artist’s aunt who recently passed away, Jen Manning will be presenting a collection of over  thirty works, most of which have been created this year. “My aunt was a very close family member and it was her who encouraged me to paint and pursue art as a career”, states the artist.

On a more abstract note, Warwickshire painter Mick Rafferty will be holding his solo show, ‘Dripped, dropped and splattered’.

Rafferty’s eclectic paintings explore the “physicality” of pourable paint and themes from everyday life, such as modern culture, cinema, nature and the realms of human emotions. 

Calm down, calm down 100 x 80 cm

Clearly influenced by the techniques of Jackson Pollock and Gerhardt Richter, in the same manner as the latter, Rafferty often begins his work with only a vague idea of what he actually wants to achieve, building up cumulative layers in a non-representational way until he is satisfied with the end result.

The artist, who favours the use of colourful, commercial gloss paints, intervenes as little as possible, physically disassociating himself from the canvas, pouring, dripping and manipulating the paint by exploiting the laws of gravity. This gestural form of abstraction culminates in a sometimes disturbing, sometimes soothing array of seismographic lines and colours.

Run and showcased by Leamington Studio Artists (LSA), Gallery150 is open Tuesday to Saturday from 11.00am to 6.00pm and Sunday from 11.00am to 4.00pm.  

The private view will be held on Friday 22nd July from 7pm.

Address:

Gallery150, Regent Court Shopping Parade, 9 Livery Street, Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, CV32 4NP. http://www.gallery150.co.uk

Leamington Studio Artists Open Summer Show

Image from last year's Summer Show, courtesy of LSA.

After the success of last year’s Summer Show, which showcased the works of over 100 artists and attracted more than 600 visitors, Leamington Studio Artists (LSA) is proud to announce the opening of the 2011 Summer Show at Warwickshire College from Wednesday, 13th until Saturday, 23rd July.

The Summer Show exhibition, which has been kindly sponsored by Aspect Chartered Financial Advisers, based in Leamington, will feature an eclectic selection of paintings, photographs, prints and sculpture by numerous LSA members.

Last year, Neil Moore won the ‘People’s Choice’ vote with his painting ‘Quietus’ and this year the audience will have the opportunity to vote for their favourite artist yet again. The winning artist will be awarded a special feature in Artspace, the LSA  arts journal, which has been in print since 1998. All of the voters’ names will 

also be entered into a prize draw and the winner will receive a Giclée print of the most voted painting.

The private view will be held at Warwickshire College, Leamington Spa, on Tuesday, July 12th from 6pm-8pm.