Nicholas Rena

nicholas rena

nicholas rena deep in the green lilac park

10 October - 2 November 2012

Monday – Friday 10.00 – 5.30 Saturday 11.00 -2.00

Browse & Darby

19 Cork Street London W1S 3LP Tel: 020 7734 7984 Fax: 020 7851 6650 email: art@browseanddarby.co.uk www. browseanddarby.co.uk

Nicholas Rena has developed a sculptural language that is completely original. He has taken the ancient tradition of the figure and the ancient tradition of the vessel and brought them together to reveal something not seen before.

Rena’s expressionist forms are attenuated, taut, longing. His figures are not confined to external appearance. Though outwardly demure, they reveal an interior life - unlike the mute moulds of conventional figurative sculpture that are so contained, sealed up. He is trying to make explicit a communion and a tension between the inner and the outer life.

‘Nicholas Rena has found the tragic line that always lies, however unconsciously, at the heart of man’s connection with earth and matter. One might mention the tough nobility of the work, of how its emptiness might be both sublime and death-like, or instead simply let oneself be drawn to the perfect finish of the pieces – but above all else one should say that this work has genuine intensity.

It is this that makes Rena’s work straightforwardly strong and beautiful.’

– Frédéric Bodet, Louvre, Paris This serious intensity, this feeling for interior space, imbues Rena’s figures with immense presence. Monumentality, a hallmark of Rena’s work, contributes to a formal stillness that makes them profoundly moving. So too, solidity: their thick impregnable walls are evidence of his preoccupation with mass and weight. As an architecture graduate at Cambridge in the 1980s, he acknowledges particularly the influence of Le Corbusier’s late work, where the heavy mass of a building’s walls is used to create a protected interior.

Cezanne’s proposition that ‘when colour is at its richest, form takes on its fullest expression’, is delivered here. Richness and depth is achieved by a gradual accumulation of colour in an intensive and painstaking process, almost devotional in itself. It begins as white earthenware clay that is hand-pressed into massive plaster moulds. As the clay dries, it is carved down into its final form and allowed to dry for two months before firing slowly in a kiln. Rena’s meticulous finish is perfected by layer upon layer of paint, constantly sanded back and repainted until, maybe weeks later, he at last arrives at a satisfying density of colour.

5. because of her loveliness 34 ½ x 12 ½ ins

11. the spreading magnolia 10 他 x 17 ins

15. the blue pool 10 他 x 17 ins

3. who walked between the violet and the violet 34 x 9 ins

14. the midnight axis of the moon 10 他 x 17 ins

4. I’ll rise to you 34 ¼ x 9 ins

13. it’s the edge I like, the verge 10 ž x 17 ins

10. this endless baptism of air 10 他 x 17 ins

17. a fan held by his mother 10 他 x 17 ins

16. the sun that plays between 10 他 x 17 ins

6. rose of memory 14 x 16 ins

7.double lily figure 40 x 19 ½ ins

8. here you offer up that sensual stage 12 x 21 ins

9. portrait of a couple 46 ½ x 10 ins 15 x 18 ½ ins

1. between the yews 10 ½ x 24 ins

2. as the dew rises 34 Âź x 10 ins

1.

between the yews 10 ½ x 24 ins

2.

as the dew rises 34 ¼ x 10 ins

3.

who walked between the violet and the violet 34 x 9 ins

4.

I’ll rise to you 34 ¼ x 9 ins

5.

because of her loveliness 34 ½ x 12 ½ ins

6.

rose of memory 14 x 16 ins

7.

double lily figure 40 x 19 ½ ins

8.

here you offer up that sensual stage 12 x 21 ins

9.

portrait of a couple 46 ½ x 10 ins 15 x 18 ½ ins

10.

this endless baptism of air 10 ¾ x 17 ins

11.

the spreading magnolia 10 ¾ x 17 ins

12.

come back to me 10 ¾ x 17 ins

13.

it’s the edge I like, the verge 10 ¾ x 17 ins

14.

the midnight axis of the moon 10 ¾ x 17 ins

15.

the blue pool 10 ¾ x 17 ins

16.

the sun that plays between 10 ¾ x 17 ins

17.

a fan held by his mother 10 ¾ x 17 ins

All works are ceramic, painted and polished

NICHOLAS RENA 1963 1982 - 1985 1985 - 1987 1993 - 1995

Born London, England Cambridge University, BA Architecture Cambridge University, MA Architecture Royal College of Art, MA

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2000, 2002

2001, 2003, 2007 2001

2004, 2008, 2010 2004

2009

2010

2012

Garth Clark Gallery, New York Barrett Marsden Gallery, London Galerie Pierre, Paris The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh Galerie Puls, Brussels, Belgium The Louvre, Paris Marsden Woo Gallery, London Browse & Darby, London

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 1999

2000

2001, 2008 2002 2009 2010 2012

The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh Galerie Binnen, Amsterdam Oxford Gallery, Oxford Victoria & Albert Museum, London Keramikmuseet Grimmerhus, Denmark British Council touring exhibition, Brazil Jerwood Prize Exhibition, London Gallery Norby, Copenhagen Collect Exhibition, Saatchi Gallery, London Art Fund Award – Collect Exhibition, Saatchi Gallery, London 10 Downing Street, London

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS The British Council The Crafts Council Canary Wharf, London Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh The Louvre, Paris National Crafts Museum, Copenhagen National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Browse & Darby 19 Cork Street London W1S 3LP