PROJECT2017: Change & Transformation – Exhibition Catalogue

gallery elena shchukina

project 2017 change & transformation 25th May - 3rd June

I am delighted to introduce PROJECT2017, the first edition of a new series of curated art fairs offering a platform for exceptionally talented contemporary artists to showcase their work and present it directly to the public The artists we have selected for PROJECT 2017 use varied techniques and materials, and their visions on art are diverse. Yet, they are all inspired by two powerful themes: change and transformation.

Change and transformation are fascinating and enigmatic.

Heraclitus once expressed the idea that all things are in a state of change: “You cannot step twice into the same rivers; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.�

Change is fundamentally subjective; we know it only by experiencing it, by living through it, which is why art that expresses change is so captivating and enriches our understanding.

Transformation is closely linked to change, but it is often additionally gifted with the qualities of choice and process; we take the initiative and grasp the nettle in order to transform an object, an idea, or even ourselves. Transformation in art is a process of growth and discovery.

The artists selected for this exhibition have all explored and expressed their own interpretation of change and transformation through their work. We will also be reflecting upon change and transformation through our exciting programme of events and talks.

With PROJECT 2017, I wanted to step beyond the traditional gallery model. We are bringing the artists closer to their audiences in an intimate environment that will encourage creative thought and expression.

I hope you will enjoy experiencing PROJECT 2017 with us this year.

Elena Shchukina

We are proud to launch PROJECT, a new zero-commission contemporary art exhibition.

A reflection of the changing role of the art gallery today, PROJECT is a platform for international emerging and established contemporary artists to showcase their work and present it directly to the public.

Continuing Gallery Elena Shchukina's programme of exhibitions that are accessible to everyone, PROJECT offers visitors the unique opportunity to meet the artists and buy artworks directly from their creators. A series of talks, events, and performances will support the exhibition and enrich visitor's experience, and a public vote competition will award one artist with a solo gallery exhibition.

PROJECT inaugural edition is a ten-day exhibition dedicated to abstract drawings and paintings exploring themes of change and transformation.

Change is the positive driving force of PROJECT 2017. From the sublimation of concrete form into pure thought, to the unfolding of personal relationships and memories, all the works exhibited carry within them the promise of creativity and the potential for something new.

Looking at the work of twelve contemporary artists, PROJECT 2017 is interested in drawing links between artists whose work, through the formal language of abstraction, expresses the transformative processes and aims that lead to its making.

Participating Artists

Lulwa Al-Khalifa Lindsay Bardwill Terry Beard Ai Campbell Hermione Carline Jason Haufe Mark Lloyd Lulu Manasseh Caia Matheson Mukesh Shah Lisa Sharpe Lindsay Terhorst North

Lulwa Al-Khalifa

Lulwa Al-Khalifa is a self taught painter who has never had any formal instruction in art.

She earned a BA from Boston University in Literature, which helped her form her outlook on creative pursuits as a whole. She works primarily with oil paints and her paintings are characterised by their bold and vibrant colours.

Al-Khalifa creates movement in her works achieved through her textured brush strokes and the manipulation of the paint on her canvas. Her artistic interests were cultivated by a childhood where was encouraged to appreciate art in all its forms.

Al-Khalifa has exhibited locally in Bahrain as well as internationally, in London, New York and Miami.

Beet This 2017 Oil on canvas 120 x 150 cm

"I have never had a formal education in art, but I have always had a deep passion for it. My love of art was ignited by my father, who made too much of a fuss over my ballerina drawings. He made me believe in my creativity and appreciate creativity in others. As a child, I remember being bored out of my mind bouncing from one museum to the next. I now appreciate how those museums helped embed an artistic interest in me from a very young age that penetrated my childish boredom and flourished in adulthood.

I like many styles and disciplines of art, however my work is mostly abstract. I usually paint 'alla prima' (wet-onwet) and my paintings are always oil on canvas. I love the texture and vibrant colours of oil paint and I love how you can't always predict how a stroke will translate on a canvas.

I am inspired by everything, including music, a thought, a feeling, a debate, other art, literally anything. I can't really predict what the impetus for the next painting will be, as it just happens and then I paint.

I try not to overthink my process and I paint what I feel when I'm facing the canvas, usually with some random song repeating in my head. I'm not too hard on myself and I usually go with my first instinct about a painting, because if I fiddle with it too much, I ruin it. I don't bog myself down with too many expectations when it comes to my work, if it's good, then great, but if it isn't, I can always paint over it and start again."

Lulwa Al-Khalifa

Crossroads 2016 Oil on canvas 100 x 150 cm

Lindsay Bardwil

Lindsay Bardwil was born in Manhattan, New York in 1986. After spending 2 years at Northeastern University in Boston, she returned to NYC to further her fashion education at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology.

A self-taught painter, Bardwil often incorporates her fashion training into her art, designing prints for fashion and interior designers. Most notably, she hand-painted custom prints for womenswear designer Heather Lawton, and currently has work for sale at the Missoni Home store in Southampton, NY. Bardwil's work has been exhibited widely in New York, and she regularly donates her artwork for auction to causes she supports, such as the annual SEED Organization Benefit Auction and the American Heart Association Heart Ball Auction.

Bardwil currently maintains studios in Manhattan’s West Village and in Southampton, NY. In these private spaces, she produces a large range of work focusing on the abstract, surrealistic, and expressionistic realms of painting and creating.

Her metaphysical perspective takes the viewer on a resonant journey into her universe, where nature is king, and the result is entirely immersive. Bardwil's focus on textures and bold color schemes is used to communicate the depth and vividness of our embroidered existence – supporting the desire to exist openly and peacefully in our mind and body, with the world around us.

Air 2016 Mixed media on canvas 30.5 x 30.5 cm

"We must bring our attention back to the beauty of the earth. The miniscule, the grand, the ever shifting noticeable evolutions of our affect."

Lindsay Bardwil

Earth 2016 Mixed media on canvas 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Terry Beard

Terry Beard is an abstract and mixed media artist, who works predominantly in acrylics, screen-printing and collage.

Born in Canada, Beard spent her childhood in Canada, Ireland and Uganda, where she developed an interest in drawing and painting. After moving to the UK, she pursued an education in textile design and spent several years as a textile designer and illustrator, as well as teaching in schools, adult education and the Prison Service.

Beard's work explores colour and mark-making, and the ways in which colour relationships can create a sense of depth, form and movement. Although influenced by urban and rural landscapes, the work remains ambiguous, and non-representational. Her series Changing Luminosity was inspired by the play of light in the urban landscape - the flickering reflection of colourful fairground lights on rain washed surfaces, or the stark contrast of moving traffic lights, bouncing on windows and buildings, against the night sky.

Beard's The Unnatural State, selected for PROJECT 2017, is a study of the decay and dilapidation of industrial and agricultural buildings, attempting to capture these irreversible changes before the structures' inevitable collapse.

Bearic 2016 Mixed media on canvas 100 x 150 x 3 cm

"I have always been inspired by a diverse mix of artists including Patrick Caulfield, Albert Irvin, Rothko, Patrick Heron, Barnett Newman, Gerhard Richter and Robert Rauschenberg.

Everything around me from remembered, fleeting glimpses right up to things I saw yesterday have influenced me.

They could be landscape, flowers, architecture, water, lights, a particular colour combination, a feeling.

I am not interested in making obviously representational images; instead I attempt to translate what I see into what I feel. In doing so, I always aim to capture a sense of depth and form using abstract elements such as colour, colour relationships, texture, mark-making and composition. I like to develop structure within a painting, contrasting it with freer bands of colour, tone and texture.

As Mark Rothko was heard saying: 'A painting is not about an experience, it is an experience'."

Terry Beard

Dunree 2016 Mixed media on canvas 100 x 150 x 3 cm

Ai Campbell

Ai Campbell is a visual artist who currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She was born in Osaka, Japan and trained in oil painting at the Kyoto College of Art and Design. Her work has ben exhibited widely in New York and the United States, as well as in Japan and Spain.

Working in ink and acrylic, Campbell creates delicate yet intricate works that celebrate the compelling nature of art’s most basic elements, using the monochromatic colors of black and white to amplify the contrast between positive and negative spaces.

Her works are inspired by organic forms, from the nascent to the moribund. By eliminating the diversity of color, the monochromatic marks enhance contours and shapes, allowing to see more clearly each object's essential components.

Ethereal yet powerful, Campbell's work arrest the gaze and capture the imagination.

Wave 2017 Ink and acrylic on Yupo 127 x 66 cm

"I’ve been fascinated with detailed monochromatic works since the first time I saw the beautiful landscape drawings by my grandfather, a successful industrial designer. During the war, he spent his spare time drawing the places where he was stationed. The consistent 5 x 7 inch works contained fine details in the vivid contrast of black and white.

Because he passed away before I was born, those drawings were my only interactions with him.

The simple yet explosive black and white spaces enhance the contour of shapes, allowing one to see vividly simple yet critical elements. An obsession with this type of imagery has become the central theme of my own work: engaging the most basic elements of life to build or extract the most complex.

I feature the organic shapes and natural forms that I encounter, such as water streams on a faded wall, layered leaves on a tree or my own tangled hair, exploring how their virgin elements can interact. I think the individually lifeless elements start to breath the company of other types.

My work will continue to explore the beauty and power in life’s intricate organic forms and I am excited to see its evolution."

Ai Campbell

Aperture 03 2017 Ink on panel 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Hermione Carline

Hampstead-born Hermione Carline is an English painter and mixed media artist. She studied Fine Art at Camberwell School of Art and followed with an MA in Textile Design at the Royal College of Art. Carline’s first career was as a textile designer, working with designers such as Ralph Lauren, Pierre Cardin, and Christian Dior. She turned to fine art in 2004, and has since exhibited regularly in London with her work held in collections across the globe.

Drawing inspiration from her own early influences as a textile designer, along with travels in Japan in 2013 and 2016, Hermione Carline explores themes of translucence and opacity informed by the use of screening and light in traditional Japanese architecture. She distils the transient quality of light into shards of colour and white spaces in her paintings, capturing the ever changing dynamic between light and dark.

Carline's process is one of continuous transformation - layering and obscuring colour almost to the point of destroying the painting. Abstract yet firmly rooted in the material world, the resulting pictures can be seen as the faint impression of a memory, leaving much to the imagination of the viewer and allowing for new meanings and interpretations.

City Garden 2017 Oil on Wood 122 x 51 x 5 cm

“My work as an artist is about my own experience, evoking the feeling of light passing through an open window, or a fleeting moment, or a memory of a room. Memories of my family home can act as a catalyst for my paintings so they can be seen as an act of remembering or retrospection, leaving much to the imagination of the viewer. It is not about pinning down the time or place but about hinting at it or conveying a sense of it.

Hazy, opaque and layered, I use sequences of translucent layers as if they are refractions dancing over a landscape or the play of light on skyscraper windows. I use white as a structural tool in much the same way paper screens are utilized within Japanese architecture. The blocks of white are never solid and often allow a glimpse at the colour just beneath, creating passages of paint that seem to recede into the surface of the painting.

In contrast, my tonally dark paintings show a different dynamic within my body of work: one that is more concerned with shadow and concealment. My process when making the darker paintings is about discovery through destruction and I layer dark pigments almost to the point of obscuring all light as I build and sculpt the surface of the painting.

There is a three-dimensional quality to the work reinforcing the idea of moving into the world of the painting itself.

I imbue the work with an immersive and atmospheric quality by using the varying viscosities of paint. Drawing from the shapes and forms of the natural world as well as the varied architecture of my native London, I am able to create work that is abstract but also firmly rooted in the material world.�

Hermione Carline

Orange Gold 2017 Oil on Wood 122 x 51 x 5 cm

Jason Haufe

Born in 1974 in Melbourne Australia, Jason Haufe has been committed to his art practice focussing on abstraction, for twenty years. Since graduating with his Honors Degree in Fine Art at Monash University in 1995, Haufe has delivered over twenty solo exhibitions and has explored abstraction through painting, collages, sculpture and printmaking.

Haufe is an accomplished draughtsman and has been selected for important art prizes, including the prestigious National Drawing Dobell Prize at NSW Art Gallery (Sydney, Australia) in 2009, 2008 and 2005. He has also been shortlisted for the Rick Amor Drawing Prize at The Ballarat Regional Art Gallery.

His work has gained considerable critical attention, most notably by Christopher Heathcote with the essay 'Journeys into Drawing', published in Contemporary Australian Drawing.

Haufe exploration of spatial and pictoral ideas within the limited means of abstraction was lauded by Sydney Morning Herald art critic Michael Fitzgerald, writing that "there is a satisfyingly cerebral play between soft and hard shapes in these abstract works by the Melbourne-based Jason Haufe, who is inspired as much by Howard Arkley as Piet Mondrian in his elegant interlocking grids of tense, spray-painted colour.�

Haufe's recent work, exhibited in PROJECT 2017, explores the process of feedback loops to generate new directions in his collages. These are created by using a combination of digital, mechanical and analogue process, transforming seemingly mundane materials into new pictorial inventions.

7: 19 2016 Collage (photocopies on canvas) 30.5 x 18.5 cm

"The work for PROJECT 2017 are abstract collages made from photocopies. All the pieces of paper that are used in these collages are either photocopied from the source material directly, or manipulated digitally on a computer and then printed and photocopied.

Much of the source material comes from patterns on the back of pay slips or from the inside of envelopes, photocopied on different scales and then distorted beyond recognition, transforming mundane visual information into forms for pictorial exploration. I also scan and photocopy completed work, producing not just copies, but a variety of new material for future work. Every time a work is produced, it adds to the sum of material that can be fed back into the process. The methods I employ allows for the possibility of repetition, changes in scale, inversion and distortions, adding to the complexity of forms and possible directions in which I can take the work.

Through this simple feedback process, change becomes an inevitable part of the works development, disrupting the stylistic refinement exemplified by the modernist signature image.

The forms within each work are constantly shifting, not just in directions but in tempo, so that the viewer's eye is forced to move at different speeds along the undulating form. Often an irregular form will be repeated many times in different works, getting lost amidst a multiplicity of forms and attaining a new character. The iconic structure presented appears to be in a state of flux between one form and another.

I use a combination of digital, machine and handmade processes that ensures that discovery is a prerequisite of pictorial invention. The best results being when there is an acceptance of uncertainty, embracing change and transformation as necessities for the enrichment of abstraction."

Jason Haufe

15: 5 2016 Collage (photocopies on canvas) 24.5 x 24.5 cm

Mark Lloyd

Working primarily in painting, Mark Lloyd (b. 1971 Birmingham, lives in Birmingham) is British contemporary artist known for his mixed media work, combining graffiti and traditional fine arts techniques.

Lloyd graduated from Falmouth School of art with a BFA in 1992, and in 2012 gained a MFA from Winchester School of Art. After spending ten years between 1984 and 1994 working as a graffiti artists, Lloyd began exhibiting in the UK and internationally. In 2008, Mark won the NIACE European Adult Learner of the Year Award. He was profiled on the Saatchi Gallery as part of New Sensations in 2012, and in 2013 was short listed for the Griffin Art Prize. His work has received acclaim from artists and critics, with features in the Independent, and exhibitions alongside Sir Anthony Caro and Banksy.

Lloyd's set of references include postmodern philosophy, science, and science fiction - and recently, Lacanian psychoanalitical theory, digital technology, and the abstract expressionist work of Mark Rothko.

The theoretical complexity underpinning Lloyd's practice finds its material and processual counterpoint in the synthesis of past and future - combining high and low cultural perspectives, digital and analogue techniques, and traditional and non-traditional artistic imagery and processes.

Such complex layering of references, imagery and materials allows Lloyd's work to transcend categorical boundaries, leading critics to describe it alternately as meta-modernist, post post-modernist, and nascent.

Imago 2016 Oil, acrylic and spray paint on raw canvas 95 x 58 cm

“My work begins from a philosophical and conceptual starting point, and often directly references postmodern philosophical concepts, science theory, and science fiction. My work is a visual manifestation of thought experiments.

The circle or sphere motif appears in nearly all my work and serves as a visual symbolic vehicle, a conceptual and philosophical metaphor for mystery and the unknown.

My work intends to explore unknown unknowns of the human condition and evolution in the age of computer technology and genetic engineering, and the future possibilities and catastrophes of this processes of 'blurification'.

In painting, I synthesizes the past and the future in imagery and materials.

My recent themes include: transhumanism/posthumanism, the awe and shock of modern technologies and their possibilities, the soul and spirit of humanity, and the loss and rediscovery of God. In recent work I burn objects, artworks or prints, and turn their ashes into paint pigment with which I make paintings.

Why do I do this? It is suggested that art has lost its aura /soul (Walter Benjamin /Jean Baudrillard) and this process is an attempt to reintroduce authenticity and aura/soul back into art. It is also a re-interpretation of the Hindu practice of ‘Antiyesti’ and an attempt to introduce deeper meaning and value, to go beyond the superficial, and reconstruct the ‘real’.

These ideas fascinate me and I believe this is relevant and important in the context of our ever increasing reliance and dependence on technology in global culture”.

Mark Lloyd

Order of Being 2014 Oil, acrylic and spray paint on raw canvas 130 x 107 cm

Lulu Manasseh

Lulu Manasseh is a British artist/maker living in London, England.

Manasseh studied at Wimbledon School of Art and then went on to Leeds Metropolitan University completing a Bachelor of Arts in Three-Dimensional Design. Manasseh's work has been exhibited in important UK institutions including The Royal Academy of Arts and The Design Museum in London.

She has created murals and public art for various London venues.

Manasseh was awarded ‘Young Designer of the Year,’ by the Royal Society of Arts in 1992. With the travel bursary she travelled and explored the art and cultures of South America, India and parts of Asia.

More recently her travels have taken her back to India and to Morocco.

Deeply influenced by the wisdom traditions, alchemy and the healing arts, Manasseh regards her paintings as magical objects of healing and transformation. Imbued with signs, symbols and sacred script, each work is like a talisman or amulet for you to come into contact with or hang in your space.

Evoking, inspiring, invoking.

Harmonic of 33 2016 Mixed media on panel 121 x 82.5 x 2.5 cm

"If one's creativity is a mirror of the inner life, this work reflects a process of gathering parts to complete the whole.

Building layer upon layer, moving from light to darkness, recognising that it is the darkness that holds the light.

And it is the field of darkness that draws one in.

Both into the canvas and into an inner space of quiet and solitude. From here we have the opportunity to transcend the duality of our lives, to step into the unknown."

Lulu Manasseh

The Cure is in the Longing 2016 Mixed media on panel 71.5 x 121.5 x 2.5 cm

Caia Matheson

Caia Matheson is an award-winning contemporary oil painter based in Brighton, UK. She was born in Johannesburg and educated in Tokyo and London. Matheson has exhibited widely in the UK, and has been shortlisted for numerous awards, including winning Brighton Artist of the Year in 2004. Matheson painted Europe’s first Rainbow Pedestrian Crossing Brighton in 2014, and in 2013 her work was selected by author Neil Gaiman for the book A Calendar of Tales.

Matheson is inspired by wabi sabi, or the beauty of imperfection.

For Matheson, painting is a very physical process. She loves to mix paint mediums and experiment with the effects. This, for her, can be the most exciting part of the creative process. Her mediums are oils – tubes of oil paint, oil bars, oil pastels and mixtures of oil paints and dyes. She enjoys the texture consistency and smell of them. Matheson paints with her hands and washing-up sponges onto canvases laid flat on the floor, building and scratching off layers of oil paint to create a world within worlds.

The layers are designed in a way to expose different subjects of the composition. These subjects are buried in the dark and light spaces and come out and disappear as the light changes presenting different aspects depending on shifting light conditions and mood.

Transcendental 2016 Oil and dyes on hand-stretched canvas 64 x 56 x 3 cm

"My work is about words and verse from all sources such as radio plays audio books stories song lyrics and poetry.

I get such great pictures from words and translate them into my work as a visual narrative.

I begin painting with a specific colour that I have in my mind’s eye. I then introduce other colours and begin to build layers on the canvas. These layers are then scratched off and layered over again like a palimpsest literally meaning ‘scraped clean and used again’. I love the idea of previous markings that are not visible but are still an inherent part of the composition.

I consider each successive layer a generation to populate or depopulate the canvas as needed and create my own world as I go.

I like to create a world within worlds.

As a kid I used to be fascinated by the Lowly worm in the Richard Scarry books. I loved scouring each page to seek out that worm and when I found it I would feel most content like I had discovered a piece of secret truth that would uncover all the answers to my questions about the universe. There are some Lowly worms in my abstracts albeit in symbolic form."

Caia Matheson

In the Light 2016 Oil and dyes on hand-stretched canvas 100 x 100 x 3 cm

Mukesh Shah

Mukesh Shah (b.1959 Aden, Yemen) was educated at Eton and Cambridge. He is based in Dubai having lived in London until 2012.

His practice is an exploration of inner landscapes. He is drawn to an abstract geometry of repetition and controlled chance. Materials such as paper, cardboard and gauze are often integral to the compositions, adding an organic textural and tactile dimension. Whatever eclectic visual language is used the objective is to discover an inevitable simplicity in each piece.

The resulting works may be still and detached or observing a changing world, reflecting different states of consciousness.

Kind of Blue_3 2017 Mixed media on aluminium panel 122 x 81 cm

"My practice is an innate response to change and the narratives that impact me.

Abstraction that is contemplative and detached but also human seems more relevant than ever; I am drawn to the space where figuration dissolves into abstraction. My compositions often have a geometric structure with space, repetition and chance as keynotes.

The process of making is important in itself and the use of different materials adds a tactile textural physicality to the work."

Mukesh Shah

Kind of Blue_2 2017 Mixed media on aluminium panel 122 x 81 cm

Lisa Sharpe

Lisa Sharpe is a British painter who has been involved in the world of art and design for nearly three decades. At the age of 22, Sharpe set up her own business as a silk shoe designer; early career highlights include designing the bridesmaids' shoes for the Duke and Duchess of York's Royal Wedding, being selected as the shoe designer for the BBC TV series "Bride of the Year", winning a major Conde Nast Award, and being photographed by Terry O'Neill for Tatler and Stella Artois.

Sharpe then went on to work in the art world and live in several countries around the world, briefly attending art school as a mature student but remaining essentially a self-taught artist. In 2006 she founded Lisa Sharpe Contemporary Art to source artwork for private and corporate clients. Since 2013 Sharpe has been focusing the majority of her time on painting and writing.

In early 2016, Sharpe started collaborating with Swiss gemmologist and jewellery designer Doris Hangartner to create Gem Art Fusion: a unique concept of matching a painting with its resonating gemstone. The fusion of stone and painting create perfect synergy: this unique alignment of two beautiful energies creates a profoundly deep visual and sensory experience.

This emphasis on energy informs all of Sharpe's work. Using bright, unadulterated pigments, she paints in broad, gestural strokes that are a physical expression of her creative urge: "My desire to create and to nurture are over-powering passions deeply embedded in my DNA. My paintings are a physical expression of those passions coming together to create visual sanctuaries."

Orange, Blue, White III 2016 Mixed media on Arches paper 48 x 37 cm

“My vision is to unite and connect with people all over the world through my painting, writing and word paintings: I create artwork with the intention of lifting people’s spirits so that they feel loved and connected.

Through the medium of paint, colour has the ability to create its own visual language: a language, which like music, bypasses the mind and connects directly to the soul - it is this language of emotions and connection, which I am trying to speak.

Energy is a constant theme which runs through my work and I find it fascinating how the trillions of cells within our bodies are continually transmitting and receiving frequency waves of energy: absorbing the emotional and physical vibrations around us. It has led me to question the energy that I put out into the world‌what am I adding to it? Is it positive; is it negative; is it loving?

And so my artistic practice is about connecting to the love within me and creating a partnership with paint: I am not trying to harness or shape the paint in any way, what I am trying to do is breathe life into it, so that it becomes vibrantly alive and in the flow. It is this sense of vitality, this expression of flowing aliveness and loving energy, which I hope, is captured within the painting so that it can be sensed and felt by the viewer."

Lisa Sharpe

Forest White Light, Blue, Ochre 2016 Mixed media on Arches paper 48 x 37 cm

Lindsay Terhorst North

Lindsay Terhorst North is a mixed media painter and installation artist, who explores personal issues of identity, change, displacement and value.

The Alignment series is Terhorst North's increasingly more abstract, reductive approach to painting.

Aiming for simplicity allows her to say very little, yet convey so much more. The brushstrokes are full of intent; they are purposeful and controlled. Long gone are the rough surfaces of the past. They now display precision, skill and above all, discipline, a painterly embodiment of the artist's evolving sense of self.

Each of the paintings in the series echoes Terhorst North's progress on her journey of personal evolution.

Her first move from figurative painting was the result of an initial, conscious decision to strip back. The aim? Abstraction at its purest! As each work progressed, she found the painting process itself therapeutic, akin to meditation.

Created by painting in long, slow, brushstrokes, building the many layers, Terhorst North's Alignment paintings reveal a transformative shift in perspective, the resolution, through restraint, of inner tensions.

Alignment III 2017 Oil on canvas 100 x 120 x 3 cm

"I have always been drawn to trees because I identify with how they weather the elements. Their marks of life are external and visible yet equally internal and hidden. As a result, I would expose my canvasses to layers and layers of oil and ink to represent our own life experiences through time.

There has always been tension between the raw and expressive mark making versus my more painstakingly applied brushstrokes. But, as I have grown and developed I have come to terms with my own experiences. As such, my new series of work reveals a gradual, transformative shift in perspective.

As I sought to resolve my own issues of disillusionment, recklessness and release, I found myself refining my own style of painting with hidden messages and secret elements. The tension between conformity and rebellion became less evident as I conquered this discipline of restraint; it was in sync with my own developing sensibilities. And, from my time on an Old Masters' course in Paris, even the process of mixing the paints and the layering of the oils added the depth, richness and calmness I pursued. As I advanced along this road I was overwhelmed by the sheer stillness that encircled me."

Lindsay Terhorst North

Alignment IV 2017 Oil on canvas 100 x 120 x 3 cm

gallery elena shchukina

gallery elena shchukina 10 lees place, mayfair london w1k 6ll +44 (0)20 7499 6019

www.galleryelenashchukina.com

From its base in Mayfair, Gallery Elena Shchukina brings emerging contemporary artists to London.

Gallery Elena Shchukina is a contemporary art gallery located in the heart of Mayfair. We are dedicated to exhibiting emerging and established international contemporary artists, exhibiting identifiable or innovative techniques.

We believe in choosing contemporary artists who display exceptional talent, technical skill, and creativity. Through our programme, we deliver engaging contemporary art exhibitions that are accessible to everyone.

The Gallery also offers a stimulating schedule of art and cultural events, workshops and lectures.