PIPPA BLAKE Undercurrents
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PIPPA BLAKE Undercurrents
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Many of the works in Undercurrents quietly touch on the sinister side of nature, creating a subtle tension between the beautiful and the unknown encapsulated in the reflective surfaces of apparently tranquil water. The show hints at the possibilities of dangerous currents or obstacles.
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Undercurrents, painter Pippa Blake presents a new body of work exploring the calming serenity and hidden dangers of creeks, streams, and rivers. Born from the centrality of voyaging by sea, land, and air to the artist’s life and career, this collection of paintings looks at waterways as routes of travel for humans, non-humans, and elemental forces alike.
The exhibition employs dual geographies to express both the fluid interconnectivity of all bodies of water and the specific conditions of local ecosystems which are affected in unique ways by the polluting actions of human beings. The places depicted in the paintings are located across New Zealand and the UK, spanning two opposite sides of the world. A small, rare, and increasingly threatened chalk stream local to Blake’s English south coast home provides a poignant counterpoint to a creek in rural New Zealand, first shown to Blake via photographs by her daughter on a long-distance phone call during the coronavirus lockdown. Through her process of capturing a sense of place, Blake’s work also speaks to a soulfulness and melancholy that suggest a widespread human yearning for something beyond the Manyordinary.ofthe
works in Undercurrents reflect a career-long concern with dichotomies of order and chaos. Blake often begins by dividing a canvas into a grid, using perpendicular lines to instil an underlying sense of order in the work. When she starts to paint, however,
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Over the course of her career, Blake has taken an aesthetic journey through figuration and abstraction. Her current body of work continues the art historical tradition of landscape painting, while drawing on the gestures, formal elements, and use of colour developed through her abstract practice. Seeing painting as a collaboration between head, heart, and hand, Blake is continually drawn to the physical materiality of oil paint and compelled to experiment with its possibilities.
she begins to stray from the grid’s compositional system, creating tensions between her freely expressive mark-making and the formal underlying structure.
Text by Anna Souter
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Oil on canvas
153 x 183 x 3.5 cm
Atchafalya, 2020
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Oil on canvas
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Kauakarau, 2022
122 x 183 x 3.5 cm
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Te Akau, 2022
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Oil on canvas 122 x 183 x 3.5 cm
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Lochan Argyll, 2021
Oil on canvas 152.5 x 122 x 3.5 cm
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Hydro Shandon, 2021 Oil on canvas
152.5 x 122 x 3.5 cm
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Shandon Lochan, 2021 Oil on canvas
152.5 x 122 x 3.5 cm
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Waiomoko, 2022
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Oil on canvas x 122 x 3.5 cm
91.5
Paremuka, 2021
Oil on canvas x 122 x 3.5 cm
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91.5
2022 Oil on canvas 91.5
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122 x 3.5 cm
Waikumete, x
Momutu,
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2022 Oil on canvas 91.5 x 122 x 3.5 cm
24 Deep the stream mysterious, 2022 Oil on canvas 63 x 76 x 3.5 cm On Temporary Loan to Pallant House Gallery
Riverhead bend, 2022 on canvas x 76 x cm
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3.5
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Oil
Riverhead, 2021
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Oil on canvas x 76 x 3.5 cm
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Il, 2022 Oil on panel 51 x 76 x 4 cm
I, 2022 Oil on panel 51 x 76 x 4 cm
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Oratia
Oratia
Rangitopuni I, 2022
Oil on canvas
41 x 51 cm
Rangitopuni II, 2022
Oil on canvas
41 x 51 cm
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Oil on canvas
41 x 51 cm
Rangitopuni III, 2022
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Oil on canvas
41 x 51 cm
Rangitopuni IV, 2022
Rangitopuni V, 2022
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Oil on canvas
Rangitopuni VI, 2022
41 x 51 cm
41 x 51 cm
Oil on canvas
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Oil on canvas
41 x 51 cm
Oil on canvas
Rangitopuni VIII, 2022
41 x 51 cm
Rangitopuni VII, 2022
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Oil on canvas
Oil on canvas
Rangitopuni IX, 2022
41 x 51 cm
Rangitopuni X, 2022
41 x 51 cm
2022 Undercurrents, Candida Stevens Gallery, Chichester and Cromwell Place, London
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SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2004 Havant Arts Centre, Hampshire, UK
1995 Herringbroom Studio, Sussex, UK
2020 Isolated Observations , Candida Stevens , Chichester , West Sussex
2010 Pippa Blake: Journey. Exhibition supported by Louis Vuitton, Auckland, New
2020 On the road : Candida Stevens Gallery, Chichester
2022 Sussex Landscape, Chalk, Wood and Water, Pallant House Gallery
2017 10 West, Santa Barbara, CA, USA : March 2 – March 28
2017 GOOD NATURE : Candida Stevens Gallery, Chichester : September
2014 20 Painters, Phoenix Gallery, Brighton, UK
2016 Ellipse : Galerie Remise, Beusselstrasse 2, 10553 Berlin
2019 Present Day , Candida Stevens, Chichester, West Sussex
2013 Zimmer Stewart, Arundel, West Sussex
2002 Havant Arts Centre, Hampshire, UK
2001 Lane Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
2016 Oxmarket 40 Years Anniversary Retrospective, Chichester
2004-2005 West Dean College: Postgraduate Diploma in Visual Art (Distinction)
2018 ‘there’s no time like the present ‘ Squash Court, Old Portchester, Hampshire
2016 Art on a Postcard : The Hepatitis C Trust, London.
2007 The Wyer Gallery, Battersea, London, UK
2015 Utopia: Dystopia, Embassy Tea Gallery, London
1997 Deborah Bates Gallery, London, UK
2006 Works on Water. (with sculptor William Pye) Sussex Barn Gallery, West Sussex, UK
2012 Artis Gallery, Auckland New Zealand
2016 Ellipse : Angelika Studios. High Wycombe
2014 Artis Gallery, Auckland New Zealand
2015 Utopia: Dystopia, West Dean College, Sussex
(with photographer Kos) Moncrieff-Bray Gallery, Sussex, UK
2019 Island , Candida Stevens , Chichester, West Sussex
2011 Highgate Contemporary, London
2002 Lane Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
2016 Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me: Pallant House Gallery, Chichester
2010 Inside/Out: The work of Pippa Blake. West Dean College
1972-1976EDUCATIONCamberwell School of Art: BA Hons Fine Art Painting (First Class).
2017 Artis, Summer Show , Auckland, NZ
2014 ‘et la peinture ?’, galerie du jour, Paris, France
2017 QUEST : Candida Stevens Fine Art, Chichester
2008ZealandVoyage.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021 One Large: Two Small, Candida Stevens, Chichester, West Sussex
2019 Heimweh , Art Space Portsmouth, Hampshire
2008 Artists from the South: Chichester 2008 Chichester Cathedral 900 Years: Artel 2007 The Ocean Project: ARTEL/NOCS: Bargate Monument Gallery, Southampton
2011 Conversations: Artel: Havant Arts Centre
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2010 Stripped Bare: Havant Arts Centre 2009 Chichester Festival 2009 Omega Printmakers, Portsmouth 2008 Havant Museum
2001 Beatrice Royal Contemporary Art, Hampshire ‘Coast’, Artsway, Hampshire 2000 Portsmouth Open Mill Studio Exhibition, Sussex 1999 L’Artichaut Small Paintings Show, Chichester 1998 St Richard’s Hospital ‘Paintings from Poems’, Chichester 1997 Arundel Festival, Sussex 1996 Sussex Open, Brighton 1994 Chichester ‘City of Culture’ Exhibition 1993 Sussex Open, Brighton 1977 New Contemporaries, London 1976 Stowells Trophy, Royal Academy 1975 Portsmouth Open
Beatrice Royal ‘Australasian Exhibition’ ‘Works on Paper’ Sydney Arts Fair, Australia 2002 Face-It’, Otter Gallery, West Sussex You Are Here’ Phoenix Gallery Brighton Director’s Choice, Havant Arts Centre
Artis, Auckland. NZ
2006 Resurgence; Langstone Gate: Havant Arts Centre
2005 The Flux Project: West Sussex (with Tim Kent)
2004 Artist’s Harbour Historic Portsmouth Dockyard 2003 ‘Odyssey’ Havant Arts Centre
Blake has travelled the world extensively but now lives and works on Chichester Harbour near the Hampshire/Sussex border, UK . She exhibits frequently both in the UK and New Zealand. She serves as a founding Trustee for BLAKE an organisation in New Zealand inspiring environmental leadership
Pippa Blake was born in Portsmouth, England in 1954, and studied Fine Art (Painting) at Camberwell College of Art, London from 1972 to 1976 gaining BA Honours (First Class). In 2005 she graduated from the Visual Arts Programme, West Dean College, Sussex with a Postgraduate Diploma (Distinction).
Text © Anna Souter
Published in September 2022 by Candida Stevens Gallery on the occasion of an exhibition featuring the work of Pippa Blake
Images © The Artist
All rights reserved
Photography © Dan Stevens
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Catalogue © Candida Stevens Gallery
12 Northgate, Chichester West Sussex PO19 1BA 07794 info@candidastevens.com416569www.candidastevens.com@candida_stevens
