Initial Sighting

INITIAL SIGHTING 7 July - 1 August 2018

JOANNE HUMMEL-NEWELL SUSAN LAUGHTON KARINE LÉGER JFK TURNER

Cover: Susan Laughton, Land & Sky II Mixed Media on Board, 25 x 25cm Inside Cover: Karine Léger, Winter tale série 10 (detail) Mixed Media on Canvas, 30 x 30cm Additional works will be available during the exhibition.

More information on the artists, artworks and prices can be found on our website and via our Artsy profile.

INITIAL SIGHTING 7 July - 1 August 2018

JOANNE HUMMEL-NEWELL SUSAN LAUGHTON KARINE LÉGER JFK TURNER

Join us for the opening on Saturday 7th July from 2-4pm

&Gallery

17 Dundas Street, Edinburgh, EH3 6QG andgallery.co.uk info@andgallery.co.uk

JOANNE HUMMEL-NEWELL Human habits and social behaviour inform an improvised process which combines collage, painting, and installation, sometimes of a public nature and not limited to the environment of a gallery.

Carnivals, makeshift shrines, allotment gardens, protest signage and handwritten notes are some of the found forms of expression which intrigue and stimulate my arts practice. I’m interested in the cultural artefacts and experiences that are created for celebration, mourning, demonstration, worship or survival which allow us, for a brief moment, to journey psychologically within the joy, sadness, meditation and belief, and freedom or dependence of our fellow beings.

What do these artefacts and experiences tell us about the human condition and what is there to learn by analysing the nature of our instinctual creative acts?

Joanne Hummel Newell ( b.1982 UK) trained at the Royal College of Art London and was hailed as ‘the next generation to turn its back on Emin and Hirst’s conceptual works’ by the Observer. Joanne has exhibited internationally including 53rd Venice Biennale, Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and Jerwood Drawing Prize, as well as being shortlisted for the Beers London Contemporary Visions exhibition. Commendations include Head of collections at Soho House, Kate Bryan, as one of the ‘Must see artists at the Other Art Fair’ and the Times Newspaper ‘Picking up a Picasso is one click away’.

Joanne has a growing international collector base and is included in public and private collections in UK, US, Hong Kong, Europe and Australia.

Breaking the Grid I & II, Indian Ink and waterbased on Waterford Saunders watercolour paper, 130 x 90cm Left: Horizon Dance, (Detail), Indian Ink and waterbased on Waterford Saunders watercolour paper, 38 x 28cm

SUSAN LAUGHTON Susan’s paintings and drawings evolve from halfremembered glimpses seen from the corner of the eye, fleeting juxtapositions elusive to photography, the dislocated reverie of long car journeys, or from more studied compositions.

The landscape is Susan’s starting point, not as a picturesque or static view, but as a space travelled through and experienced often on the edges of the urban and the rural. It is a source of man made and natural structures, surfaces and colour from which my reductive personal responses develop. Man made structures in particular impose their presence: telegraph poles, fences, power lines, isolated buildings – structures that create tension within space and mark the passage of time and distance.

Process and materials are important to me as a way of allowing the paintings to emerge as objects in their own right. Structured and methodical approaches combined with spontaneous and intuitive reactions allow me to plan and take risks: to combine control with ‘let‘s see what happens if…’

Land & Sky I, Mixed Media on Board, 25 x 25cm Left: Suspension I (Detail), Mixed Mixed on Board, 80 x 70cm

KARINE LÉGER Karine Léger’s approach first involves the need to deconstruct in order to lay the foundations for an introspective reconstruction. From paper or digital cut-outs, her compositions are born out of a collaging process. Colours, textures and shapes are meticulously selected to be arranged and rearranged, assembled and reassembled, in a quest for the right balance. Similar but independent forms come together, at times nearly touching, other times precariously balancing on one another and, on occasion, merging.

This slow, deliberate, creative process is how Karine Léger builds the foundation of her next work. Nothing is rushed, nothing is forced. She stops only when that precious balance has been achieved. Although the composition is set, she reserves the right to stray from the concept in deference to the canvas.

Deeply connected to her personal life, superimposed layers of images and transparent acrylics has its own story to tell. The shapes seem anthropomorphic at times, reflecting that constant desire for balance. But they only reveal just enough, allowing plenty of room for the viewers to find their own interpretation or story.

Karine Léger lives and works in Montréal, Canada.

Keeping you close 13, Mixed Media on Canvas , 100 x 100cm Left: Hold Still, Mixed Media on Canvas, 100 x 120cm

JFK TURNER JFK Turner’s work is concerned with the unnoticed ephemeral elements of everyday life; found objects, marks, stains and the natural effect of time. The objects Turner collects from the street form the basis of the work.

The paintings are not abstract – they are based on something from the real world – for example a rubber band, a screwed-up piece of paper, or a flap on a cardboard box. These are non-objects, just the remnants of life.

The works are closer to objects than traditional paintings. If paint is used it is house hold paint that is poured, smeared and allowed to congeal and crack – like spilt paint on a pavement. In addition to paint Turner uses found materials – wax, plaster, photographs, paper, discarded books and clothes. Working on wood allows the surface to be attacked by scratching, sanding and stabbing. This adds to the works physical quality – like a collagraph printing plate or a religious icon.

Turner takes objects and elements from the real world, combines them together to create another object. The ordinary becomes unusual and other.

UNTITLED 1 - 28, Mixed media - Household paint, varnish, wax and found materials on board, 14.8 x 21cm approx Left: UNTITLED, Mixed media - Household paint, varnish, wax and found materials on board, 30 x 30cm

&Gallery, 17 Dundas Street, Edinburgh, EH3 6QG andgallery.co.uk info@andgallery.co.uk