‘Andre w Hardwick ‘Scarred Wilderness’
The exhibition represents two years of returning to known landscapes. Like those of the estuary and coast around Portishead, where I work and grew up. Also that of the moors. Exmoor and Dartmoor especially, where as a regular visitor I return for solace. These landscapes are personal, known, remembered yet at the same time, strange and always new, when revisited. The landscapes are embedded in my personal history; their scars, both geological and historical are joined with mine and all washed over by the power of the elements and time. Working in the studio, I try, with conglomerates of texture, to express something of these feelings. Oil paint, acrylic paint, earth pigments, ashes, glue, plastic, hay and other found or discarded material might find a place. Ever present in the image is the sky, which I find hard to deny. In some images, ghost-like abandoned quarries, forgotten roads and railway tracks appear. They are explained in paint, matter and old toys. A plastic jet disturbs one painting of a seemingly tranquil vast moor. It is a modern world.
Increasingly my places are upset by walkers and new nature reserves. The walkers come from new housing estates that have sanitised and replaced the post-industrial wilderness that ran alongside the estuary. Even the old burnt-out cars have now gone, swallowed up by the ground, their lives now joining those, of earlier and more ancient artefacts below. Helping on a local archaeological dig, I found in the medieval layer, clay pipes and pottery all infused with heating oil leaking from a nearby office. It is a landscape of strangeness and contradiction. I like to contrast the the power of this coast and the moorland wilderness I visit, by including their car parks and roads that take people into their depths. Also to show a playfulness of the modern world by producing my images out of materials that perhaps could have been taken out of a skip. As always when visiting old friends, there are certainties mixed with surprises. Love, regret, joy, fear, feelings of loss, and time now gone, but also of renewal and celebration.
Andrew Hardwick. 2015
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White Sea, Estuary, Wind and Cows mixed media on panels | 175 x 351 cm
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Abandoned Quarry, Moor and Sea mixed media on panels | 180 x 345 cm
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High Moor and Jet Fighter (Roar) mixed media on panel | 151 x 245 cm
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Old Quarry, Road, Moor and Wind mixed media on panel | 119 x 174 cm
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Late Light, Beach, Brown Estuary and Car Park mixed media on panel | 145 x 175 cm
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Estuary, Bream, Brown Coast mixed media on panel | 123 x 172 cm
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Purple Estuary, Beach and Old Railway Sidings mixed media on panel | 154 x 175 cm
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Winter, Moor, Yellow Light mixed media on panel | 123 x 152 cm 18
Winter, Moor, Valley, Sunset mixed media on panel | 121 x 152 cm 19
Estuary, Cliffs, Beach mixed media on panel | 100 x 134 cm 20
Estuary, Cliffs and Car Park mixed media on panel | 104 x 134 cm 21
Estuary, Purple Sea, Wind, Clouds mixed media on panel | 63 x 92 cm 22
Wind, Cloud, Moor mixed media on panel | 62 x 84 cm 23
Estuary, Wind, Grey Sea mixed media on panel | 60 x 76 cm 24
Valley and Clouds mixed media on panel | 60 x 70 cm 25
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Late Light, Headland mixed media on panel | 103 x 134 cm
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Estuary, Coast mixed media on panel | 60 x 70 cm 28
High Moor and Road mixed media on panel | 60 x 70 cm 29
Dull Day, Dark Moor mixed media on panel | 30
60 x 77 cm
Estuary, Cliffs and Beach mixed media on panel | 43 x 54 cm 31
Beach Estuary mixed media on panel | 41 x 51 cm 32
Black Estuary mixed media on panel | 43 x 54 cm 33
Wind, Rain and Buried Car mixed media on panel | 34
36 x 47 cm
High Moor, Grey Light mixed media on panel | 36 x 47 cm 35
Wind, Rain, Wilderness mixed media on panel | 36
36 x 47 cm
Autumn Purple Moor mixed media on panel | 32 x 47 cm 37
Grey Sky, Dartmoor mixed media on panel | 38
33 x 41 cm
Old Workings, Wind, White and Blue Sky mixed media on panel | 33 x 41 cm 39
Two Horses, Moor and Standing Stone mixed media on panel | 25 x 30 cm 40
Published by Millennium to coincide with the exhibition ‘Scarred Wilderness’ by Andrew Hardwick All rights reserved. No part 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 permission Photography by Joseph Clarke Publication produced by Impact Printing Services
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