Respective Perspectives

the drumcroon gallery

Patrick Hughes & Paul Critchley

the drumcroon gallery

Patrick Hughes & Paul Critchley

17 January - 8 April 2011 Private view 14th at 6.30 p.m.

2 P a r s o n s Wa l k , W i g a n , L a n c a s h i r e , W N 1 1 R S . Te l : 0 1 9 4 2 3 2 1 8 4 0 F a x : 0 1 9 4 2 2 3 3 3 0 3 www.drumcroon.org.uk

Respective Perspectives: a witty, wondering and mysterious world…..

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At the heart of Patrick H u g h e s ’ and P a u l Critchley’s practice is a childlike curiosity and delight in the magical illusion of space that can be explored and created through visual language. They each have a playful approach to perspective, developing images which juxtapose familiar, but unrelated, objects alongside diverse viewpoints, taking the viewer into a range of domestic interiors, public spaces and landscapes. Reflecting on this work is endlessly rewarding. Patrick Hughes threedimensional multifaceted surfaces extend into the space of the gallery, and depict interior views and landscapes with a multitude of viewpoints. As the viewer moves along the length of one of his paintings, their view and sense of the painting alters and each new perspective illuminates understanding. The constant shift in focus enables a myriad of possible entries into a real and conceptual depth of complex interiors. One is aware of yet more alleyways, rooms, spaces and dimensions beyond our view. These works are both humorous and unsettling, and celebrate the playful and the surreal. Paul Critchley’s paintings conjure a domestic world that is full of tension and strangeness; life size items of furniture that seem to belong in another era introduce strange and unsettling additions.

Drawers with

Anne-Marie Quinn The Drumcroon Gallery

w a t e r, doorways that open onto rooms that are almost bare. These trick or tempt the viewer to delve further into the painted trompe l’oeil space. At Drumcroon, young visitors are encouraged to see, to look and to look again. What are we looking at? What can we see or perceive? What lies behind the painted facades? Children explore, speculate, form personal connections and make meaning from experiences. Respective Perspectives celebrates Drumcroon’s 30th anniversary year. Throughout its history, each exhibition has created a learning environment rich in possibility, opening eyes and minds as well as developing values and attitudes.

Many of the Drumcroon exhibitions were made possible through an enduring relationship with Flowers Galleries London & New York who have again generously supported us for the exhibition Respective Perspectives.

Sustained engagement with works of art is the driving principle which underpins Drumcroon practice. For 30 years, young audiences have been intrigued, entertained and, most of all engaged. Though austerity, uncertainty and public sector cuts are altering perspectives, it remains vital that cultural learning experiences are valued and supported for all sectors of every community life.

Murray McDonald writes on the Respective Perspective of Patrick Hughes Patrick H u g h e s makes the see-er see things where they are not and moving where they are still. This is because he makes his pictures in perspective, which is the way we see the world.

Things in the distance look tiny. In a street the front doors look smaller as they go further away. But not only does Hughes make everything in perspective, he puts it together the wrong way round, with the furthest-away doors nearest to you, and vice versa. As you move past these pictures in reverse perspective, they seem to move. They have been so oddly made that it is easier to say they are turning than to face up to the madness of their construction. Because as you bend down you go up, and as you walk to the left it is as if you are going to the right, you say the pictures rotate and go up and down. Hughes has made a world that comes alive when you enter it. He imagined what it would be like if reality were the other way round, and it turned out to be magical.

The two areas where Hughes is creative are in the shapes he designs and the things he paints onto those shapes. Patrick’s shapes always have verticals in them, the edges of doors or the sides of skyscrapers or the corners of rooms: they are given by gravity. The shapes then have angles to make them into trapezoids: the tops and bottoms of the doors, where the ceiling and floor meet the wall; these describe where the see-er is relative to the picture. He cannot paint people or flowers or footballs in his work, unless they are on his walls or his flat ends.

Hughes has found that libraries, galleries, buildings inside and out, suitcases and Brillo boxes and books are ideal subjects. His current favourite image is Venice. The Venetian architecture has delightful detail, and the buildings are all roughly the same height. With Venice being built in the water, the sky above and the water below allow the palaces to move so easily before o u r v e r y eyes.

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Never Ending, 2005. Oil on board construction. 61.5 x 171.5 x 30 cm.

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Blue Moon, 2010. Oil and photographic collage on board construction. Edition of 5. 58 x 155 x 26 cm.

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Turner, 2010. Hand-painted multiple with archival inkjet. Edition of 50. 42.5 x 88 x 17 cm.

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Gazebo, 2005. Hand-painted multiple with lithography. Edition 45. 42.5 x 88 x 17 cm.

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Cloudy, 2008. Hand-painted multiple with archival inkjet. Edition 45. 46 x 97 x 15 cm.

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Hoppera, 2008. Hand-painted multiple with archival inkjet. Edition 45. 43 x 95.5 x 18.5 cm.

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Purism, 2006. Hand painted multiple with lithography. Edition 45. 43 x 90 x 19 cm.

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Gifts, 2007. Hand painted multiple with lithography. Edition 45. 43 x 90 x 19 cm.

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Martin McDonald comments on the Respective Perspective of Paul Critchley

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As images and words shape our perspective on many things, in fact on almost everything, and if history belongs to the victor then reality belongs in the eye of the beholder, so if you can convince the viewer that what they are looking at is reality then you can tell them anything, anything. Ask Magritte. Perspective is a game between perception and deception. Patrick Hughes bends the rules of perspective to challenge our perception, Paul Critchley exploits the rules so we accept the deception. This is the fundamental difference in their respective use of perspective.

In his painting Midnight Visit we trespass into the hallway like an intruder and stand quietly at the bottom of the stairs, lights appear, we look left then right, up and glance down. We see all this in one instant because the perspective employed

by Critchley is so wide and seamless it feels so natural. On closer inspection we discover that our area of vision has been controlled by the shaped canvas which cunningly follows the perspective tapering to the vanishing points to the left and right and also dragging our attention up the stairs. We’ve entered onto a Hitchcock stage set and don’t quite know where to look and don’t quite know what to expect. Are we the audience or the actors ?

Midnight Visit, 2002 Oil on canvas on board. 180 x 120 cm.

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Perspective a s a pictorial device was designed to explain space; to show the relationships between objects by scale, this is the perspective we are all familiar with. But there are other ways to explain the relationships between objects such as placing objects next to each other depending on their importance to the story told, a perspective of relevance; a perspective which does not rely on observation but on meaning; the perspective seen in children’s drawings and naïve art. This narrative perspective can be found in medieval and classical Indian and Chinese art where space is incidental; something in the distance is at the top of the page and something closer at the bottom, there is no attempt to deceive the viewer into thinking that they are looking at a 3 dimensional world. Critchley obviously doesn’t make much attempt to look at a great deal of the real world either as his source of inspiration never seems to be further than what’s outside his front door. Staircases for him are a convenient way to add depth into a painting as not only can we look into but also up and down as well.

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The Letter, 2002 Oil on canvas on board. 200 x 87 cm.

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In his painting Rauric 12, Critchley is showing us the entire interior of his apartment; we see everything from the front door at street level, the stairs leading to the actual apartment and we pass the nosey neighbour standing in her doorway. We enter the hallway and admire the patterned tiles, the light raking across them, we see a window opening onto a patio: a tunnel of light, and the washing hanging out to dry. The perspective used draws us into the space; the light and shadow explain the volume, this is the familiar perspective of illusion. From the hallway we turn to our right and let our eyes walk down the corridor passing two doors, one to the left, one to the right. We peer through the opening and see what’s within, if we step through the doorways we see even more. Our eyes walk on and we arrive in the front room; sofa and window on the right, balcony with open doors in front, TV on boxes in the corner next to a door to another room. This is a diagrammatical use of perspective; we are being given a step by step introduction to the whole apartment; the painting is a visual inventory of the contents. Critchley is exploiting the rules of perspective to show us more than just one single view and in doing so makes it more understandable and therefore more realistic, even though we know an apartment doesn’t look star shaped and should in fact be one big box divided into smaller boxes. Continuing on our journey we pass through the doors and enter the artist’s studio and see on the far wall this very painting being painted. There is another balcony from which, should we step onto it, we could gaze at the street below. Next to the studio is the bathroom with the artist’s wife taking a shower, the artist himself is caught in the reflection of the mirror watching! This is indeed an odd lay out for an apartment as this corridor passing the bathroom brings us back into the hallway from where we can enter the kitchen and also the bedroom.

Another door links these two rooms. It’s nighttime in the bedroom and the lamp is lit.

Another painting, The Naked Bed, hangs there.

Rauric 12, 1998 Oil on canvas on board. 283 x 255 cm.

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Rauric 12 is a painting which uses a contorted perspective to make its point but The Naked Bed relies on a straight forward one vanishing point perspective to draw us into its story. The room shown is a cube, a box room, but Critchley has guided our eyes to look down at the bed in four ways: Firstly the perspective pulls us into the picture, secondly by concentrating almost all the details to the lower half, and thirdly illuminating the scene from a small lamp and finally he has angled the sides of the painting to lean inwards pointing down. Critchley is exploiting the edge of the painting and using the angled edges to heighten the perspective feel of looking downwards. And what do we see? A bed stripped bare, not very inviting, not as inviting as the light with its gentle warmth and subtle colours creating an intimate aura. You see, I’ve already moved my attention from how the perspective has created the illusion of space and to now how my imagination creates from the deception of seeing a red lamp, an open door, and ... a naked bed. Who would lie on it? Surely that wouldn’t be comfortable, indeed the opposite! Imagine the marks left on your buttocks! What am I looking at?

Where is this room? If it weren’t so spookily clean I could imagine it being the bedroom of Francis Bacon, and those naked bed springs? Rote streifen auf weissem Haut! But. But, it all looks so sweet and innocent, perhaps it’s where Snow White slept when she stayed with those little people, perhaps. Or maybe just Tracy Emin’s bed - after her mum has tidied up.

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The Naked Bed, 1997 Oil on canvas on board. 180 x 177 cm.

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I n t h e n e x t two paintings ‘Disconnected’ and ‘Looking In’ we are entering into a grey area of perspective because sculpture, by it’s very nature of being 3 dimensional, has a foreground and background and so the need to put something in perspective is redundant. These two paintings are corner paintings; that is to say that each painting is constructed of two planes which meet at an angle of 90º. ‘Disconnected’ hangs in the corner and has a door in the middle which can be swung from side to side to open one portal whilst simultaneously closing the other - unless of course it’s left ajar. But everything else such as the shadows is painted. A shadow is caused by one object blocking the light; a sculptor’s problem when considering how light will effect the surface of his work, but not a painter’s who can control both the light and its effect - or even totally ignore both, an option not available to sculpture. Natural light means movement as the sun passes overhead, which means the passing of time and time can also be put into perspective as illustrated by the 1961 postcard of Yuri Gagarin wedged behind the telephone helping to put it into an historical perspective.

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Disconnected, 2002. 180 x 86 x 84 cm.

Oil on canvas on board with hinged panel.

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I n t h i s variation of a corner painting ‘Looking In’ hangs on a corner and we have to walk around it to see the other side, but it’s only from one fixed view point that the perspective makes the deception of being able to look in to the room really work. ‘Disconnected’ and ‘Looking In’ are sculptural paintings and, as with Patrick Hughes’ work, they are essentially 2 dimensional but with 3 dimensional pretensions as they can’t quite decide whether to be paintings or sculptures. It is with these two paintings that we can make the closest comparison between the two artists, but these paintings also show very clearly where their respective perspectives differ: Hughes makes no attempt to mimic reality and is content to challenge our perception of it with his reversperspective. Critchley on the other hand makes every effort to make us believe in the reality to the point where we don’t question it by accepting the perspective and the structure of the space and instead diverts the focus of our attention more onto the event happening, or about to happen.

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Looking In, 2003 Oil on canvas on board. 150 x 79 x 76 cm.

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Why didn’t you do as you were told? You were warned about the Red Line, why did you cross it? To answer the phone? It’s not a real phone you know, it’s a painting. You were told, but did you listen? No. Why not? Because you were so confident that you could just step into that corridor and pick up the receiver. You idiot. I bet you thought you could just nip down the corridor and have a quick peek at what was there, didn’t you? And why couldn’t you?

Because it’s all a big trompe l’oeil, that’s why, its a big optical illusion.

Don’t you feel just a little bit stupid?

Especially when half the painting is in black and white and you still believed you could step into the space! You see, perspective is colour blind: It’s shape, scale, position and tonality which really matter; colour is a luxury and when times get tough and you can’t afford the paint it’s surprising how much you can do with just t he very basics.

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Caution Red Line, 2001. 175 x 100 cm.

Oil on canvas on board with hinged panel.

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“Arthur Koestler?

We’d like a chat with you if you don’t mind.

Tomorrow, at noon?” ... “Busy are you? Never mind, we’re not. See you in my office, we’ll send a car”.

The next day as the darkness loomed at noon there was a knock on the office door, “ВХОДЙТЕ ПОЖАЛУЙСТА!”

“Hello comrade, I’m not who you think I am, I’m just a victim of your imagination.”

If only Critchley could get that damned perspective wrong I’d be able to misbelieve!

But I can’t, the whole scene before me is so convincing.

Even the way the edges of the painting taper downwards make my head droop and take my imagination and spirits to a place of mystery, intrigue and James Bond fantasies of cold war spies; of dashing heroes w h o outsmart their interrogators. Critchley’s use of perspective not only convinces the eyes but it can also emotional have an effect on all of us.

Office 202b, 2001. 175 x 100 cm.

Oil on canvas on board with hinged panel.

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The Outsider, t h e r e ’ s always one isn’t there? That misfit, that one person who gives us the creeps.

Creepy people, creepy painting.

Oh, but I forgot: I’m only looking at a painting. I was so absorbed in the story before me that I forgot totally about the Art-ifice; the falseness, the trickery with the crafty modelling of paint and deceptive use of that devious perspective.

Oh, what a fool I was to think I could close the door and keep the evil doer out! That dastardly Critchley has manipulated my mind so cunningly that I really believed I was looking at an open door which could be closed, yet when I did close it it appeared open. Is that outsider Mr Escher who is mocking me? What we perceived as a door, has in fact, turned out to be a deception because it doesn’t close anything. I was fooled into thinking I would feel safe if I closed the door but now, conned by the perspe c t i v e , I am s i m p l y l e f t with an uneasy feeling.

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The Outsider, 1999. 183 x 100 cm.

Oil on canvas on board with hinged panel.

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Doors in walls divide and close off and open up spaces but doors aren’t just in walls they’re also in cupboards and wardrobes and there their purpose is different; usually to put something out of sight and under lock and key.

Doors have a practical function but here we’re not looking at doors we’re looking at paintings of doors and so their function is different, in fact they’re not doors at all but shaped panels and their function is to symbolise doors. However not in the case of this wardrobe door with a mirror because the mirror still functions as a mirror and since it can be opened and closed to reveal or obscure something, despite the fact that the lock and handle have been removed, it still functions as a door. It’s a semi functional painting and semi functional piece of furniture. When we open the wardrobe door a surreal scene appears: Two coat hangers hold a private conversation as one charmingly looks over his shoulder whispering some reminiscence of past glories and a corridor stretched out by perspective gives us the opportunity to enter another room.

This extra space is entirely plausible but only made possible by the idea that a door could lead somewhere and the perspective to make you believe it does.

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Monochrome Memories, 2001. 175 x 100 cm.

Oil on canvas on board with hinged panel and mirror.

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It m a y look like a fish out of water in an exhibition on perspective but Fish Supper does have its plaice. The painting Rauric 12 shows everything to be found in an apartment, everything painted is an element within the composition and the whole is the sum of its parts. Fish Supper is just one of those parts in another variation on the theme of an interior painting but taken out of context, as in this exhibition, it looks odd, however when seen juxtaposed with all the other individual paintings of the objects in the house it will take its place in perspective with its companions. When assembled as an installation we will be able to walk around a real space the size of an actual apartment but furnished not with real furniture but with the paintings of the furniture which one would expect to find in any apartment. As visitors we will become part of the scene in the interior and will put ourselves in perspective with the paintings around us especially when we see ourselves in the reflection of mirrors in the paintings like Fish Supper and Monochrome M e m o r i e s . For more infor mation on this Panoramic Interior installation go to Critchley’s web site.

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Fish Supper, 2005. 180 x 122 cm.

Oil on canvas on board with mirror.

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The British Library The Contemporary Art Society The Lousiana Museum, Denmark University of Edinburgh University of Houston, Texas University College of Wales, Aberystwyth Victoria & Albert Museum Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester Wolverhampton City Art Gallery W端rth Museum, Germany Patrick Hughes, b. Birmingham 1939 Selected public collections include : Arts Council of Britain Birmingham Museums and Art Galleries Denver Art Museum Deutsche Bibliothek, Frankfurt Dudley Art Gallery Ferens Art Gallery, Hull Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow Glasgow Museum and Art Gallery Hereford City Art Gallery Isle of Man Arts Council Kunstlicht in de Kunst, Eindhoven Leeds City Art Gallery Leeds University Leicestershire Educational Authority Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin Manchester City Art Gallery Nasher Museum, Duke University, North Carolina Northeast University, Boston Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery Sheffield City Art Gallery Tate Gallery, London 42

Selected corporate collections include : Apax Partners Holdings ltd Centrica Plc CNA Insurance, Chicago Cox Insurance Holdings PLC Deutsche Bank AG, London Goldsmiths Hall Goldman Sachs International Hanjin Shipping Co., Seoul Lloyds TSB Group plc, London Phillip Morris Collection, New York Procter & Gamble, Surrey & Cincinatti Rexifield CC, Woogin Group, Seoul Royal National Institute for the Blind Swire Group, Hong Kong Time Out Group, London Westdeutsche Landesbank, London Hughes has exhibited his work worldwide, including solo shows in London, Chicago, Dubai, New Delhi, Seoul, and the USA. He has also taken part in many prominent international group exhibitions including, Surrealist: Two Private Eyes exhibition, Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1999, and Visual Deception, Nagoya City Art Museum, Japan, touring throughout 2009.

Paul Critchley, b. Rainford 1960 Corporate Collections : Baker & McKenzie, Amsterdam Barry Friedman Ltd, New York Leicester Education Authority Museum Tuganov, Vladikavkaz, RNO-Alania, Russia Océ, Brussels Océ - van der Grinten n.v. Venlo, Netherlands PGGM, Zeist, Netherlands Smith & Williamson, London Van Mierlo Bouwgroep, Maassluis, Netherlands Veldhuizen Beens v/d Castel, Amersfoort, Netherlands Corporate commissions : P & O Cruises, Azura P & O Cruises, Ventura Royal Caribbean International, Enchantment of the Seas Critchley has had 25 solo exhibitions in various cities including London, New York, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Köln, Brisbane, Barcelona and Manchester. He has also participated in 7 two man exhibitions, over 170 group exhibitions and 45 art fairs in Europe and America.

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This exhibition is dedicated to our Wigan Peers.

The Drumcroon Gallery and Education Art Centre e. A.Quinn@wigan.gov.uk, t. 01942 321840 Texts courtesy of Anne-Marie Quinn and art critic Murray McDonald and his son Martin. © Patrick Hughes, courtesy : Flowers Galleries London and New York. t. 020 7920 7777 www.reverspective.com www.flowersgalleries.com © Paul Critchley, courtesy : anOTHER art gallery ltd. t. 075 389 383 92 www.paulcritchley.com www.anotherartgallery.com Published by anOTHER art gallery ltd.

ISBN 978-0-9524537-1-0 Printed by : www.anman.com

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this catalogue is available from the British Library.