THE
GRANTBRADLEYmagazine
ISSUE #10
MAY2013
TERENCE O'CONNOR ELAINE STORER SYLWIA LAKOMA DIDIER YAOVI ZINGAN SHOWING 4TH MAY 1ST JUNE 2013 MAY 2013 EXHIBITIONS AT THE GRANT BRADLEY GALLERY Open Mon-Sat 10-5 1 St Peter’s Court Bedminster Parade Bristol BS3 4AQ T. 0117 9637 673 W. grantbradleygallery.co.uk E. info@grantbradleygallery.co.uk
MAY 2013 EXHIBITIONS SHOWING 4TH MAY - 1ST JUNE 2013 PRIVATE VIEW FRIDAY 3RD MAY
TERENCE O'CONNOR ELAINE STORER SYLWIA LAKOMA DIDIER YAOVI ZINGAN THE GRANT BRADLEY GALLERY 1 St Peter’s Court Bedminster Parade Bristol BS3 4AQ Open Mon-Sat 10-5 T. 0117 9637 673 W. grantbradleygallery.co.uk E. info@grantbradleygallery.co.uk
THE
GRANTBRADLEYmagazine
TERENCE O'CONNOR
Terence at his studio in West Ireland, image by John Kelly
INTERVIEW WITH THE ARTIST What initially inspired you to start working creatively and when did you begin as an artist? I was interested in making pictures from early childhood. My announcement, aged eleven, that I wanted to be an artist did not go down well with my father, nor was it encouraged at the grammar school I attended. Experiences during a short career as a civil servant and also national service in the army confirmed my desire to be an artist. Key to my decision to throw up a secure ‘career’ was attending part-time art classes in Hampstead, which opened my eyes to the possibilities of art education. This was 1966, and I was twenty-seven. I enrolled in the Foundation course at the West of England College of Art and Design and moved on to the DipAD course in Cheltenham. When you first started creating your paintings what was the initial response? Can you recall the first time you showed them to a public audience? Following art school I lived in a village in Gloucestershire. I would define my work then as ‘socially committed’ being primarily concerned with rural life, the history of land, its ownership and uses. Responses to these paintings seemed largely determined by people’s social attitudes. This work was first exhibited in a group show in Cheltenham Museum and Art Gallery. Subsequently it toured other venues including the Cockpit Theatre and the Whitechapel Gallery in London, where viewers were more engaged with the works, or maybe just with the issues. What is your main source of inspiration and what other artists have been influential to you and your work? As a lecturer, and through my Master’s studies in The Social History of Art at Leeds university, I had an extensive grounding in cultural theory and shed-loads of information about artists and their work. However, I found that intellectual and analytical engagement can lead to a certain distanciation from ‘Art’. It is close physical engagement with the actual paintings which inspired me. These paintings include certain works by Manet, Van Gogh, Matisse and Picacasso and recently some by Emile Nolde. That said,
Even-Tide
I am still moved by the signs of earlier artists’ endeavours to say something difficult; for example, the marks of a compass where, six hundred years ago, Uccello shows off the foreshortened perspective on a broken lance. The sense of the human presence has an emotional charge which may matter more to us now than the facts or fictions surrounding the battle which is the subject. Tell us more about where you produce your paintings. Do your surroundings influence your paintings in any way? I have a studio in County Clare on the West Coast of Ireland. It’s on a rocky peninsula surrounded by the Atlantic and Shannon River. The presence of nature in its raw forms – changing light and movement of water, the restless wind - undoubtedly influences my work subliminally. What are your own personal motives for painting and what does your work mean to you? For me, absorption in painting can give a kind of liberation. What is it that you wish to achieve when you put on an exhibition? What feelings or messages to wish to evoke? The work in this exhibition represents a shift towards a more interior domain. In exhibiting my work I would like my paintings to be engaged with as though it they are pieces of poetry or music; they are fragments of experience. How would you like people to feel when they view your work? I endorse Brecht’s dictum that the work of art is completed in the audience. Placing a piece of work in the public domain invites a range of individual and collective responses. Tell us more about your solo exhibition here in May; what can visitors expect to see and what response do you hope to receive? This exhibition presents work made during the last two years. Viewers will see elements of a recognizable, haunting imagery which have a spatial quality. A certain suspension of disbelief is required. Art is a refraction of the world through subjective experience.
Top: Nocturne Left: Yellow Figure
ELAINE STORER Born in Glasgow, Elaine painted her first portrait at the age of 15. After travelling over the UK working as a dresser and theatrical wardobe assistant, Elaine moved to Wales where she attended Barry College Art School. Elaine now lives in Spain where she paints and also teaches art to multi-cultural students. I love to work with every creative medium but my preference is with oil. I especially enjoy painting peoples' portraits but I also love expressionism.
The Molly Fish
SYLWIA LAKOMA Sylwia Lakoma was born in Poland and has lived in Bristol since 2008. She has had an interest in art since her youth. After studying various creative mediums at Gdansk Academy of Arts such as theatre, ballet, architecture and painting, she finally made the decision to focus her skills primarily on photography. Her past also informs her present artistic style; 'My theatrical experience is very appropriate, as I draw upon this knowledge and apply it to my photography. I like to act out scenes within my images and they have a feel of drama and magic about them'. 'By using the camera you can fulfill your visions. It is a diary of your life and a profound way of showing yourself, your thoughts,values, dreams and fears'. Sylwia's work can be found in private collections in Poland, Germany, france, Spain and the UK.
DIDIER YAOVI ZINGAN Didier Yaovi Zingan is a Senegalese artist and painter born in 1985 who uses only plant materials, such as sawdust, to depict his feelings about Africa. He is self-taught since the age of 15 and has gained recognition in Senegal through a number of exhibitions. Passionate about his work, he uses his talent to help others by giving drawing lessons to children. From exhibition to exhibition (Blaise Senghor Cultural Centre in February 2006, Dakar Biennial 2007, ARAD Circle (French association), Restaurants la Croix du Sud and l’Endroit, National Gallery, Dakar) visitors recognise his talent and his originality. Through his art he expresses his unlimited worship of the bewitching nature of passion, of relationships, to fertility, to motherhood. His canvas ‘Precious’ shows a butterfly with large wings held by two breasts, a mechanism which enables it to take flight. Didier Yaovi Zingan invites us on a fantastic voyage within Africa to challenge, to hope then to act. On one of his canvases he has painted a close-up face: an eye, a nose, a mouth. Two people: one white, one black who appear to be encouraging us to get together, to respect each other, to love each other. Right: Acteur Mission
THE
GRANTBRADLEYgallery
SHOWING 4th MAY 1ST JUNE 2013
MAY 2013 EXHIBITIONS AT THE GRANT BRADLEY GALLERY 1 St Peter’s Court Bedminster Parade Bristol BS3 4AQ Open Mon-Sat 10-5 T. 0117 9637 673 W. grantbradleygallery.co.uk E. info@grantbradleygallery.co.uk