ANDREW HA RDWICK EVANESCENT EARTH
Just under the surface I shall be, all together at first, then separate and drift, through all the earth and perhaps in the end through a cliff into the sea, something of me. Samuel Beckett
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Introduction
This is Andrew Hardwick’s first exhibition at Millennium. As I write this introduction, A landmark retrospective of Peter Lanyon is being held at Tate, St Ives. As one would expect, a visit to this exhibition is a testament to the power of land and sea, but more specifically to Lanyon’s sense of place, his entwinement within that place. The suggestion of the skeleton fused with the granite underfoot. Andrew Hardwick is, of course, a very different painter, but we can observe similarities. Certainly in a rawness of approach, but Hardwick’s paintings are also born from an intimate relationship with location. This relationship is extracted in part from Hardwick’s farming heritage. Their farm adjoined the Bristol Channel and included a large acreage of tidal salt marshes. We see the dramatic shift in this landscape but also his personal history, for example in the painting ‘Ditches, Docks and Storage Car Park’ where the landscape of his childhood lurks beneath a car park where once the family sheep roamed, a place where the new world has superseded the archaic and we see the transition. In contrast, in the paintings ‘Estuary, Saltings, Sheep and Aeroplane’ and ‘Ogmore Coast’ the ghosts of crashed war aeroplanes become submerged by the terrain which surrounds them. The violent impact of what was then the modern world, now disintegrates and becomes entombed. This rapid transcients is also supported in the painting ‘Sand Bay’ where toy soldiers squirm in the soil of Hardwick’s childhood playground. The site had earlier been the location of an army camp and gun placement during the war. All is fleeting, as the passing of time and geology of the earth seem to swallow up all that temporarily sit upon it adding mass. Adding further delicate layers of history.
Where nostalgia is rendered with the use of toys, the application feels authentic. The intimation is emotive, suggesting triviality when compared to the heavy rendering of soil and stone. These trinkets - these memories, like all matter, become buried with the passing of time. Personally and universally - our own childhoods become lost. It often seems that the pursuit of many landscape artists is to compete with beauty of the natural world; this objective sets up a competition with the muse, wrangling with its evocation of the majestic. Hardwick’s often large, cinematic panel paintings subvert these notions - the ego belongs to nature and we are reassuringly reminded of it. The beauty proffered is not conventional, or judgmental. These paintings are honest and unsentimental. Hardwick’s raw surfaces appear almost attacked, with violent indiscriminate fervour - there is little concession towards fussiness or prettying. These are paintings that revel in material. Where paint, matter, earth and pigment, often from the direct source of the inspiration of a painting are poured and built in to a surface. They appear heavy but also fragile. That which appears delicate makes a consent to much considered ecological fragility. But the weight and the mass somehow reverts the balance in the argument, placing emphasis of the momentous power of the earth over us - a sanguine notion. We become just another fragile geological layer. Reminding us of our own loss of intimacy with our surroundings and in part our stain upon it - the inconsequence of our contemporary concerns. This is where I feel that their optimism lies; in that they confront our ego, by reminding us that some things are much bigger than us. Perhaps some things are more enduring. Jose ph Clarke
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Cliffs, Estuary and Tractor oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes and other collage material on panels 174 x 316 cm
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Sand Bay oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes and other collage material on panels 174 x 316 cm
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Ogmore Coast oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, roofing felt and other collage material on panels 171 x 342 cm
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Bay, Estuary, Milky Grey Day oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes and other collage material on panels 174 x 316 cm
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Estuary, Red Sun and Football oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, football and other collage material on panels 186 x 342 cm
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Dark Sky and Sea oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, wax, roofing felt and other collage material on panels 174 x 316 cm
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Stormy Day, Dark Blue Sea and Caravans oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, and other collage material on panels 174 x 316 cm
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Estuary, Sheep, Dull Day and the M4 Motorway oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes and other collage material on panels 174 x 316 cm
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Estuary, Saltings, Sheep and Aeroplane oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, and other collage material on panel 122 x 159 cm
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Ditches , Docks and Storage Car Park oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, and other collage material on panel 122 x 178 cm
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Oak Tree, Empty Car Pound, Docks and Cars oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, and other collage material on panel 122 x 159 cm
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Avonmouth, Saltings and Brown Estuary oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, and other collage material on panel 59 x 76 cm 26
Autumn, Wind, Rain, Dartmoor oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, and other collage material on panel 59 x 75 cm 27
Rain, Autumn Sea and Headland oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, and other collage material on panel 93 x 97 cm 28
Grey Day, North Devon and Lundy oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, and other collage material on panel 122 x 150 cm 29
Last Light, South Moor, Dartmoor oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, and other collage material on panel 170 x 245 cm
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Cornwall, Cliffs, Moonlight and Sea oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, and other collage material on panel 170 x 245 cm
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Rock, Sand, Mud and Sea oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, and other collage material on panels 186 x 342 cm
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ANDREW HARDWICK EDUCATION 1987 - 90 Bath College of Art 1992 - 95 BA (Hons) Fine Art, University of the West of England, Bristol 1995 - 97 MA Fine Art, University of Wales, Cardiff, Wales SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 1991 1994 1997 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Where the Avon meets the Severn, Sydney Place Gallery, Bath Alien Landscape, Veale Wagsborough Gallery, Bristol Deluge Chapter Arts Centre Cafe, Cardiff. Elemental Landscapes, Michael Tippett Centre, Bath Spa University Transient Land, The Viewpoint Gallery, Plymouth College of Art, Plymouth Elemental Dynamics, Flax International Arts Centre, Belfast, Northern Ireland Between Land and Water The Phoenix Gallery, Brighton Earth Echoes, The London Road Gallery, Northwich, Cheshire Earth, Sea and Sky with Clement McAleer, Kirkby Gallery, Liverpool Looking West, PSR, Hull Land, Sea and Sky, Thompsons Gallery, Stowe on the Wold Veiled Earth, Otter Gallery, University College Chichester, Chichester, West Sussex Between Land and Tide, South Tipperary Arts Centre, Clonmel, South Tipperary, Southern Ireland Fragmented Land, Folkestone Museum and Art Gallery, Folkstone, Kent Tunnel Gallery, Tonbridge Forgotten Ground, Central Art Gallery, Ashton-under-Lyne, Manchester Atruim Gallery, Bournmouth University Estuary, Newport Museum and Art Gallery, South Wales Where the Sea Meets the Estuary, Burton Art Gallery, Bideford, North Devon Tidal Wilderness,Victoria Art Gallery, Bath Evanescent Earth, Millennium, St Ives
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2002 2003 2004 2006 2007 2010 2010 2011
Summer Exhibition, Thompsons Gallery, Stow on the Wold Into the Light, Hot Bath Gallery, Bath Partial View, curated by Matthew Collins, Hot Bath Gallery, Bath Summer Show, Cube Gallery, Bristol Autumn Show, Royal West of England Academy Autumn Show, Royal West of England Academy Mixed Winter Exhibition, Millennium, St. Ives London Art Fair, Business Design Centre, Islington
CRITICAL REVIEWS, TELEVISION AND PRESS COVERAGE Sarah Hughes, Visual Arts Review, Fine Time Magazine, February 1997 Chapter Arts Centre Review, February 1997 Evening Herald, Visual Arts Preview, 16 February 1999 Phoenix Arts Review, January 2000 Artscene, September 2002 Yorkshire Television, Look North, Interview, 4th September 2002 Partial View Catologue South Tipperary Today, 4 August 2004 The Nationalist, 7 August 2004 Metro, Arts Review, February 2008 Devon Life, November 2009 Venue Magazine, March 2010
Published by Millennium to coincide with the exhibition ‘Evanescent Ear th’ by Andrew Hardwick All rights reserved. No par t of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publishers Photography or works and ar tist por traits by Nik Strangelove (www.studiostrangelove.com) Printed by Active Colour (www.activecolour.co.uk) ISBN 978-1-905772-40-7
MILLENNIUM Str eet-an-Pol St. Ives Cornwall 01736 793121 m a i l @ m i l l e n n i u m g a l l e r y. c o . u k w w w . m i l l e n n i u m g a l l e r y. c o . u k