Fragments of Time and Place
introducing the work of Malcolm Whittaker
Malcolm Whittaker (b. 1937)
“[My work is ] a personal response to……..an exciting set of relationships, a juxtaposing of natural, prehistoric, organic forms and the trappings of 19th and 20th century collectors’ paraphernalia – glass cabinets, numbered specimen boxes, analytical documents and diagrams.”
Cover image: Votive Boat 1, 2012. Framed dimensions: 117 x 97 cm (detail above)
2 Sunny Mews, London nw1 8dz +44 (0)7850 192731 | claire@clairebrownart.com
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Claire Brown on Malcolm Whittaker I first encountered the work of Malcolm Whittaker in the early 90s when exhibiting at the Twentieth Century British Art Fair and, over the next decade, acquired a small, treasured collection. The paintings have moved with me many times and have been the first on the walls on each occasion. In them I see reflected many of my own interests and inspirations and love that they sit so happily alongside ancient and modern works, above old oak coffers or mid-century sideboards. His creative process mirrors the practice of archaeology – scraping, finding, preparing and displaying – and the results are thoughtful and poetic. His influences are many and varied, cerebral and visual – geology and geological diagrams, texts, surfaces, prehistoric tools and landscape, collecting, categorizing and cataloguing. The results often resemble artefacts uncovered from a museum archive. I am certainly not alone in my love of Malcolm’s work – there are a number of fellow admirers with much larger collections than my humble selection – but I do feel he deserves to be known and enjoyed by a wider audience. So I hope you will enjoy this small selling exhibition which can also be viewed by appointment at 2 Sunny Mews, London NW1.
Claire Brown Ar t
1. Fragile Trees 2013 Framed dimensions: 36 x 42 cm Mixed media This work illustrates Malcolm’s fascination with the ‘collected’ object taken out of situ, removed from its source of origin and given a new meaning. Resembling a fragment of ancient wall painting he intends this as “a comment on the fragility of all life”. Deterioration over time, by natural processes, by human destruction through intent or mindless graffiti, is symbolised by the two trees and reproduced through gouging, scraping, scratching and generally degrading the image and surface.
2 . Six Boats 2020 Framed dimensions: 86.5 x 38.8 cm Mixed media, including exhibition board, clay, wood, leather, raffia and gold leaf
3 . Landscape Line 2011 Framed dimensions: 111 x 37.2 cm Mixed media, including pen and ink pencil, composite board, raffia, wood and string
“The influences and preoccupations in my work are many and varied, cerebral and visual – land surfaces, maps, aerial photographs, geological diagrams, museums, text and book forms. The ‘real’ subject though is the act of painting; the physical act of translating idea and experience as a quality of medium. Everything else is subservient to this. My concern is centred around making complete autonomous entities, realms through which the viewer is invited to explore and experience not just the referential elements, but its physical presence. A place displaying the history of its making. Those cumulative processes of layering and scraping, burying and retrieving are as much about touch and contact as they are about equivalents and metaphor. The experience of landscape is translated into the experience of painting.”
The ‘Collection’ series
The ‘Collection’ series is an ongoing project of smaller scale works, each framed to the same dimensions. It is an exploration of many of the recurring themes in Malcolm’s work united by his interest in “man’s desire….to collect, own, wrap, box, identify and catalogue”. The five examples included here reflect particularly his passion for fossils and the phenomenon of collecting, a passion originally ignited by the extensive collections of the Natural History Museum frequently visited during his time at the Royal College of Art – “I remember being visually overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stunning objects and specimens, the preserved remains of countless fossils, insects, animals and rocks”. Though executed and sold as individual works over many years, their display in groups adds to the museological inferences.
4. Numbered Fish 2 2007 From the ‘Collection’ series Framed dimensions: 33.7 x 33.7 cm Image dimensions: 13 x 12.5 cm Mixed media: composite board, graphite, ink and wax
5. Pyritic Fish 2007 From the ‘Collection’ series Framed dimensions: 33.7 x 33.7 cm Image dimensions: 12 x 14 cm Mixed media: composite board, paint, wax and gold leaf
6. Letter to an Extinct Fish 2014 From the ‘Collection’ series Framed dimensions: 33.7 x 33.7 cm Image dimensions: 10.3 x 15.6 cm and 4.7 x 6.5 cm Mixed media: composite board, paint, ink, wax and gold leaf
7. Dapedius 2007 From the ‘Collection’ series Framed dimensions: 33.7 x 33.7 cm Image dimensions: 16 x 13.5 cm Mixed media: composite board with wax, oil and sand
8. Frog ‘1’ 2011 From the ‘Collection’ series Framed dimensions: 33.7 x 33.7 cm Image dimensions: 13 x 11.5 cm Mixed media: composite board with wax, oil and sand
Malcolm’s own collection of fossils and ‘other bits of the natural world’ provide a rich source of inspiration in his work. In this case a dessicated frog found in an ironstone quarry at Frodingham, Lincolnshire on a fossil hunting visit has been painstakingly recreated.
Claire Brown Ar t
2 Sunny Mews, London nw1 8dz +44 (0)7850 192731 claire@clairebrownart.com www. clairebrownart.com