Seen Curated by Melanie Miller Exhibiting artists Anna Gardiner Juliette Losq Loiuse McClary Melanie Miller Alice Oswald Sue Williams A’Court
Unseen Private View 6 – 8pm on Wednesday 27 June Exhibition 28 June – 3 August 2018
LONG & RYLE 4 John Islip Street, London SW1P 4PX t : +44 (0) 20 7834 1434 e: gallery@long-and-ryle.com • www.longandryle.com • tues – fri 10 - 5:30 sat 11- 2 front cover: S e e i n g S e e n o i l o n g e s s o p a n e l s approx 50 × 50 cm (each 13 × 13 cm)
Introduction This exhibition presents five female painters and one poet. All of the artists would resist the label of nature or even landscape artists and yet they each present us with a unique interpretation of landscape: from the poetic and idealised to sensory understanding and to a world of urban experiences where manmade structures interact and are softened by nature before being lost to it. Some of the works appears to reflect the realisation that we are losing our intimate knowledge and experience of the natural world. Nature is neither benign nor judgmental, it is relentless; if something is neglected it will be reclaimed but once something is lost we cannot bring it back.
Melanie Miller
Anna Gardiner Anna Gardiner paints a narrative/non-narrative world of banality using the quotidian objects of our collective relationship with the landscape. Not for Gardiner the modern dystopia, nor the pastoral rolling hills – these places are firmly ‘normcore’. Everyone makes their impact felt on their surroundings, imprinting themselves and their values, tastes and loves on their particular hearth land. The quiet ambition, folly, humour, secrets, generosity and joy of countless anonymous lives are represented by caravans, pollarded trees, double chimneys, clean-swept driveways and wonky telly aerials.
H o l d i n g T i g h t 2 0 1 8 oil on linen, 92 × 76 cm
above:
F o r T h e D a y 2 0 1 8 oil on canvas, 30 × 30 cm
right:
S t re t c h re a c h 2 0 1 8 oil on canvas, 76 × 76 cm
I n k y B e a u t y 2 0 1 8 oil on linen, 20 × 20 cm
T h e H e l l o Tre e 2 0 1 8 oil on linen, 20 × 20 cm
Juliette Losq Juliette Losq makes large scale detailed ink and watercolour paintings. Through their complexity and depth she challenges the notion of watercolour as a medium that, traditionally, holds connotations of portability, and which is to be used for preparatory sketching. Her aim is to evoke an uncertain world hovering at the edges of a symbolic “Clearing�, where wilderness and chaos oppose civilization and order, and in which beauty and neglect are interchangeable.
Vi r a l s p i r a l 2 0 1 7 ink and watercolour on paper, 141 Ă— 126 cm
Alice Oswald
S p i r a l i s l e t 2 0 1 7 ink and watercolour on paper, 155 Ă— 126 cm
Louise McClary Louise McClary walks in the landscape gathering information making watercolour sketches drawings and notes ‘en plein air’ in order to what she describes as ‘get the subject into her bones’ building up an internal language and knowledge. Back in the studio she aims to distill that information and form a more emotive and poetic response to the landscape.
R e f l e c t e d s i l e n c e 2 0 1 6 acrylic and ink on linen canvas, 76 × 76 cm
L i k e a r i v e r s o n g 2 0 1 5 acrylic and ink on paper, 33 Ă— 52 cm
Alice Oswald
U p o n t h e b r i m m i n g w a t e r 2 0 1 5 acrylic, ink and collage on linen canvas, 76 Ă— 76 cm
Melanie Miller Melanie Miller’s paintings work as powerful echoes of nostalgia. All of the works carry complexity reminiscent of herbaria or fossil-like findings. Although they appear to contain simple, common place motives the paintings are, paradoxically, dense, and demanding to grasp. Through layers of paint a complex texture and sublime quality emerges, but the Nature we are confronted with is not the nature of the Grand Canyon or something so large that exceed our capacity to comprehend. It is Nature so familiar as to be overlooked and in that close attention, there is a metaphysical suspense.
R e l i c 4 2 0 1 8 oil on gesso panel, 30 Ă— 30 cm
Te m p 2 0 1 7 mixed media Jesmonite, resin velvet, embroidery, wood, glassl, 12 Ă— 18 Ă— 9 cm
H y d r a n g e a P e a c h B l o s s o m M o t h 2 0 1 7 oil on gesso panel, 30 Ă— 30 cm
‘ O b j e t Tro u v e ‘ s e l e c t e d w o r k s : S e e n U n s e e n 2 0 1 7 - 1 8 oil on gesso, sizes variable
R e l i c 2 0 1 8 oil on gesso panel, 40 Ă— 40 cm
S m a l l S p a r ro w 2 0 1 8 oil on gesso panel, 50 Ă— 50 cm
Ta l l N e t t l e s 2 0 1 7 - 1 8 oil on gesso panel, 60 Ă— 80 cm
Sue Williams A’Court Sue Williams A’court explores the notion of the visual sublime working within painting, drawing and collage. She employs reimagined landscapes as triggers for encounter or contemplation. Classical landscape references are reinterpreted in a new context, rendered in graphite on a variety of surfaces. The form , combustion and materiality are meticulously constructed to summon a state of mind rather than a specific location. Central to the work is an exploration of the human desire for solace in ‘Numinous” experience within a reductionist secular context and invites curiosity of ones own mental states.
D e s i re a n d L o n g i n g 1 2 mixed media paint, graphite, spray paint and varnish on linen canvas, 180 × 180 cm
A n o n y m o u s - 9 3 collage and paint on old book covers, 29 Ă— 32 cm
A n o n y m o u s - 8 6 collage and paint on old book covers, 29 Ă— 32 cm
A n o n y m o u s - 8 1 , 8 2 , 8 3 , 8 7 collage and paint on old book covers, 29 Ă— 32 cm
Acknowledgements I would like to thank Long and Ryle for their generous support in allowing me to curate this exhibition. I would like to thank Alice Oswald * and her publishers for their kind permission to reproduce the poems for the exhibition and the catalogue. Her poems have added an extra layer and inspiration to this process as well as being studio companions for myself and several of the other artists. I would finally like to thank my fellow artists for agreeing to participate in this show and for producing works which speak to us all about the necessity, as well as the beauty and fragility of the natural world in our lives. Melanie Miller
*Alice Oswald, “A Short Story of Falling” from Falling Awake. Copyright © 2016 by Alice Oswald. “Ideogram for Green from Woods Etc. Copyright © 2009 by Alice Oswald
LONG & RYLE 4 John Islip Street, London SW1P 4PX t : +44 (0) 20 7834 1434 e: gallery@long-and-ryle.com
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www.longandryle.com
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tues – fri 10 - 5:30 sat 11- 2
opposite ‘ O b j e t Tro u v e ‘ s e l e c t e d w o r k s : S e e n U n s e e n 2 0 1 7 - 1 8 ( d e t a i l ) oil on gesso boards, sizes variable
LONG & RYLE