Abs tract Arma ture Simon McWilliams
Abs tract Arma ture
Simon McWilliams
This catalogue was published on the occasion of the exhibition
Born in Belfast in 1970, Simon McWilliams was educated at the Royal Academy Schools in London and the University of Ulster in Belfast, specialising in painting. For more than 20 years Simon has proven himself to have a unique painterly voice. He gathered accolades and awards in the USA, UK and Ireland; most notably the Guinness Award at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London; a Major Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and Perpetual Gold and Silver Medals from the Royal Ulster Academy. Simon lives in Belfast with his wife and daughter.
Simon McWilliams Abstract Armature at The Naughton Gallery at Queen’s 11th April - 18th May 2014 Design: Darragh Neely ISBN 978-1-909131-21-7
www.simonmcwilliams.com
2014 All photos © Simon McWilliams except Back cover and portrait of the artist © Robin Cordiner All rights reserved. No part of this book may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the permission of the artist, authors or publisher. The Naughton Gallery at Queen’s Lanyon Building Queen’s University Belfast BT7 1NN Telephone: +44 (0)28 9097 3580 Email: art@qub.ac.uk www.naughtongallery.org Page 4
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Abs tract Arma ture Simon McWilliams: Abstract Armature
“All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it, (Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of the arches and cornices?)” Walt Whitman from A Song for Occupations
Armature was originally a term of sculpture and architecture, denoting a physical framework stabilizing an object during fabrication. Later, it was used as an interpretive analogy in Cubism to describe the underlying organizational skeleton on which elements of quasiabstraction could be hung to keep the image together. In the vibrant, densely built, spatially complex paintings of Simon McWilliams, armature fulfills the pictorial aspect of its meaning -- and takes a lead role in the content of the images. His aesthetic affinity for the dynamic ambiguity of construction sites frequently leads McWilliams to depict actual architectural scaffolding in his compositions, as well as sparked a love for the fragile, elegant dissonance and unlikely climate of classic greenhouses. Not entirely ready to submit to the desires of pure pigment, it’s no wonder McWilliams is attracted to real places with unreal qualities. He loves the way construction zones exist at the coincidence of creation and destruction -- the colorful flapping tarps, stark lights, clouds of dust, contortions of space and perspective, the eliding of geometry and weather. In turn, the presence of these and other artifacts of the familiar world hold together compositions that might otherwise threaten to dissolve into abstraction. McWilliams is keenly aware of this threat, and he is forever shoring up against it. “I’m going for a more ambivalent surface, for a formalism that is fundamentally abstract despite my ineffable need for a scaffold of realism to hang it on. A builder using a cement cutter might give me an excuse to compose an abstract shape and play around with smoky textures and sparkling light. Sometimes I feel the builders help me solve a composition -- but at the same time, the paintings grow in ways I hadn’t planned.” When it comes to McWilliams’ periodical return to the subject of palm-houses, there are significant formal and analogical correspondences. In the use of lines, the energy of the hurried geometry, and the evocative deployment of paint, one sees echoed the same strategies he used to replicate atmospheric effects of industrial construction -here used to both depict and replicate the florid fractals that undergird organic botany. His determination forms through brush and brushless work isn’t just pictorial, it’s sculptural and dimensional. And it’s worth remarking how the hypersaturated interior fog of the hothouses is not unlike
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the dust of a construction site. In a marvellous bit of fate, this exhibition is being held at a gallery inside the Queens University in Belfast, which was designed by Charles Lanyon, and next door to the University is a curvilinear palm-house which he also designed. it is the exact palmhouse which McWIlliams has been painting. Unsurprisingly, it was the combination of architecture and exotic atmospherics that also attracted him there. This quality is reminiscent of JMW Turner’ works of majestic ambiguity like Rain, Steam, and Speed. Having the impulse to paint abstractly yet lacking the language to support it, Turner instead sought out places, things, and phenomena that already looked abstract and painted those. Even the organic elements McWilliams chooses are cultivated, artificial natures -- living but not ordinarily occurring, designed recreations within the urban context. McWilliams, like Turner deploys abstraction as an inherent quality of the postindustrial epoch. Looking at cement, rebar, polyurethane, and debris, using paint and saturated color to understand; melding natural, industrial, and emotional phenomena into a singular expressive construct; and prompting our attention not only to what we see, but to how we see it. Shana Nys Dambrot Los Angeles, March 2014
Shana Nys Dambrot is an art critic, curator, and author based in Los Angeles. She is currently LA Editor for WhiteHot Magazine, Arts Editor for Vs. Magazine, Contributing Editor to Art Ltd., and a contributor to the LA Weekly, Flaunt, Huffington Post, Scene, and KCET’s Artbound. She studied Art History at Vassar College, and besides contributing to various magazines, she is a writer of not only books but also exhibition catalogues. She curates one or two exhibitions a year and speaks in public with alarming frequency. Her work is archived (mostly) at sndx.net.
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Abs tract Arma ture Red Model oil on linen 153cm x 123cm 2014
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Abs tract Arma ture Cathedral oil on canvas 108cm x 130cm 2010 - 2013
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Abs tract Arma ture M-Machine oil on linen 80cm x 60cm 2010
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Abs tract Arma ture Welder and Smoke oil on linen 80cm x 60cm 2010 - 2014
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Abs tract Arma ture Building Babel oil on canvas 195cm x 213cm 2010
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Abs tract Arma ture Yellow Shuttering oil on canvas 90cm x 76cm 2010 - 2013
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Abs tract Arma ture Smoke and Ladders oil on linen 152cm x 182cm 2012 - 2014
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Abs tract Arma ture Red Ark with Steam oil on canvas 163cm x 173cm 2010
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Abs tract Arma ture New Tower of Babel oil on canvas 72cm x 60cm 2010
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Abs tract Arma ture Palmhouse oil on canvas 172cm x 165cm 2007 - 2013
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Abs tract Arma ture Obelisk oil on canvas 150cm x 100cm 2010 - 2014
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Abs tract Arma ture Open Night oil on linen 153cm x 123cm 2014
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Abs tract Arma ture Belfast Palmhouse II oil on canvas 152cm x 182cm 2013
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Abs tract Arma ture Restoration Dust oil on linen 152cm x 182cm 2012 – 2014
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Abs tract Arma ture Metropolis, Shanghai 2014 oil on canvas 250cm x 197cm 2013
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Simon McWilliams CV Education 1995-98 the Royal Academy Schools, London 1982-92 BA (Hons) Fine Art University of Ulster 1988-89 Art & Design, University of Ulster Solo Exhibition 2014 Naughton Gallery, Belfast. 2014 Belfast Print Workshop, solo show of original prints 2012 Skotia Gallery, Los Angeles 2010 Skotia Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico 2006 John Martin Gallery, London 2001 Art Space Gallery, Michael Richardson Contemporary Art, London 2000 Solomon Gallery, Dublin 1995, 1993 Cavehill Gallery, Belfast Group Shows: 2013 VUE: National Contemporary Art Fair, RHA in Dublin 2013-1993 Royal Ulster Academy Annual Exhibitions 2013 Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin 2012, 2009 2007 2002 Royal Hibernian Academy, Annual Exhibitions Dublin 2013-1993 Cavehill Gallery group shows, Belfast 2012 N.I. Printmakers, Lessedra Gallery ,Sofia, Bulgaria 2012 Factory Place Open Studios, Los Angeles, California 2012 Sea of Exchange: Ireland - Los Angeles. LA Print Space, Los Angeles Irish Film Festival. 2012 Veneris XIII, Skotia Gallery, California 2012 Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London 2011 Contemporary Art in Northern Ireland, The Arts Council NI, Stormont Castle 2011 Skotia Gallery Group Show, LA 2011 Skotia Gallery, Los Angeles Art Fair, LA 2010 Crow Moon Grand Re-Opening, Skotia Gallery, Santa Fe. 2009,2008, 2006 Boyle Arts Festival, Roscommon 2009 The Ava Gallery, The World in Black and White 2009 Ava Gallery, New Year Works 2008, 2007, 2006 Wexford Festival, Exhibition, hosted by Joan Lambert 2008 The Invisible Collection, Ava Gallery 2008 Inishlacken: A Place Apart, Galway Arts Centre and touring 2007, 2006, 2004 Fenton Gallery,Cork 2007 The UTV collection: A Fresh Look, Highlanes Gallery 2007 Double Elephant, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast 2007 Modern & Contemporary Irish Art, Sothebys London 2007 New Art from Northern Ireland. Katzen Arts Center, Washington, USA 2007 Recent Acquisitions, Queens University Collection, Naughton Gallery Belfast 2007 Glasgow Art Fair 2006 The Discerning Eye, The Mall Galleries, London 2006 Sothebys Post War and Contemporary Irish Art, RHA Dublin & Sothebys, Bond Street, London 2006 “Reflections” Joint Government Exhibition, Touring 2006 “Collectors Collections” Ormeau Baths Gallery Belfast 2005, 2006, 2001 Solomon Gallery, Dublin 2005,2004, 1999 Invited Artist, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin 2004, 2003, 1999 The Hunting Art Prizes, Royal College of Art, London 2003 Lexmark European Art Prize Finalists exhibition 2001 AIB art collection at the Ulster Museum 1999 Klinginmuseum, “Light in Art”, Solingen, Germany 1999 Art Space Gallery, “Four young Painters”, London 1999 Long & Ryle Gallery. London 1999 The Royal Overseas League, London 1998 Royal Academy Schools, London 1998 Cadogan Contemporary Gallery, London 1997 Sackler Galleries, Premiums exhibition Royal Academy of Arts, London 1997 National Print Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London 1997, 96 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts , London
Abs tract Arma ture Grants/Awards 2013 INPA International Painting Annual V3, Finalist, Manifest Gallery, Ohio 2013 Arts Council of NI, SIAP award 2012 Culture Ireland Grant 2012 British Council 2012, (10, 01, 00, 99, 94, 93) Arts Council of NI Visual Arts Bursaries 2010 Irish News Award, Royal Ulster Academy 2009 Academy Award, Royal Ulster Academy 2009 Gold Medal, Royal Ulster Academy 2009 Fringe Mk Annual painting prize finalist 2007 Celeste Art Prize Shortlisted Artist 2006 Discerning Eye London, Regional Prize 2006 Elected Royal Ulster Academician 2005 Mills Selig Award, Royal Ulster Academy 2002 Major individual award, Arts Council of Northern Ireland 1999 Silver Medal, Royal Ulster Academy 1999 Abbey Stained Glass Studio Award, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin 1999 Hunting Art Prizes, Gallery Award, London 1998 Arts Council of Ireland, Equipment Grant 1998 Elizabeth Fitzpatrick Bursary, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin 1998 Nicholas & Andre Tooth Travel Award, Royal Academy, London 1998 Gilchrist Fisher Award, London 1997 British Institute award for painting, London 1997 John Crompton award Royal Academy, London 1996 The Guinness Award, Sponsors Prize, Royal Academy Summer show, London 1996 “Belfast ‘91” Award 1994 Northern Ireland Arts Club Award 1992 Belfast Young Contemporaries, prize-winner, One Oxford Street Gallery 1992 Thomas Dammann Junior Travel Award, Arts Council of NI Collections The Ulster Museum, Belfast Queens University Belfast University of Ulster Permanent collection Boyle Civic collection, Roscommon Northern Ireland civil service/ Government Art Collection Office of Public Works, Ireland Department of Finance, Northern Ireland Arts Council of Northern Ireland Allied Irish Banks (Dublin) Bank of Ireland Permanent TSB (Dublin) Guinness PLC (London) Centrum Kunstlicht in de Kunst (Eindhoven) Construction Employers Federation NI National Self-portrait collection of Ireland, Limerick Ulster Television PLC, Belfast The Haverty Trust, Ireland UNISON for Northern Ireland AXA Insurance The Mater Hospital Brian O Halloran & Associates Robinson McIlwaine Architects Brian 0 Donnell & Partners, Dublin Parker Green International McCann Fitzgerald Solicitors, Dublin The Bar Library, Belfast Environmental Protection Agency, Ireland
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