Dylan Waldron at Goldmark Gallery

Dylan Waldron at Goldmark

2010

Online Catalogue To check availability of any of the work illustrated in this catalogue please double-click on the web links www.dylanwaldron.co.uk

Front cover:

1. Suspended Pears, ÂŁ1200 acrylic on board, 1995, initialled, 20.5 x 20.5 cm

Dylan Waldron's achievement has been to draw without equivocation on the heritage of the past and yet create vibrant and compelling images that could belong only to the present. www.dylanwaldron.co.uk

Dylan Waldron DylanWaldron is one of those extremely rare contemporary artists - like Manet, Degas or Turner in the nineteenth century - who produce works of the utmost modernity, which paradoxically are securely anchored in the traditions of the past.

This is as true of his subjects and compositions as it is of his techniques and indeed what persuaded me to organise an exhibition of his works at Birmingham University as long ago as 1979. In Britain he has few equivalents, though I would have no hesitation in placing Victoria Crowe, Stephen Conroy or Maggi Hambling in the same category. In all of them I recognise qualities which are unashamedly Old-Masterly, not only in their meticulous preparation and execution (what we once proudly referred to as craftsmanship) but also in their unembarrassed homage to the greatest painters in the pantheon.

Dylan Waldron's repertoire includes the still-life, the landscape, the simple domestic interior, portraiture and compassionate depictions of the outcasts of society as evinced by Going to the Rag Market. The media he employs are as diverse as his subjects: acrylic; gouache; watercolour; egg tempera; pencil and silverpoint. All are characterised by remarkable acuity of observation, painstaking attention to detail and the same single-minded focus one instinctively associates with Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesca or, in more recent times, Giorgio Morandi.

A sense of the metaphysical, which the 20th century Morandi shared with the 17th Century Sevillian Francisco Zurbaran, is evident also in Dylan Waldron's still-life paintings, which, despite their palpable, at times photo-realistic, presence

(one may think of Chardin or Luis Melendez) nevertheless evoke a powerful spirituality.

Beachcombings, with its echoes of Damien Hirst's Forms without Life I and 17th century Dutch vanitas traditions, is a particular case in point.

Dylan Waldron's interiors such as Awakening and First Light inevitably and involuntarily recall those of the late Andrew Wyeth, another technical virtuoso, while The Owl Tree arguably connects with the rural Pre-Raphaelitism of Ford MaddoxBrown or Inchbold. His head and shoulders portrayal of Terry, on the other hand, a superlative exercise in silverpoint, calls to mind the precision of Holbein or Ingres while also closely resembling the objective scrutiny of the early camera lens.

Among the landscapes, Dylan Waldron's bonechilling panorama A Winter View from Slawston Hill is an absolute tour-de-force, executed with the supreme confidence that Durer or the Nazarenes brought to the depiction of the landscape conjoined with observations as subtle as those in Breughel's Hunters Returning in the Snow.

Such comparisons with the old (and modern) masters are among the greatest tributes any artist can be paid. Great artists, like great scientists, have no choice but to stand on the shoulders of those who have preceded them. Dylan Waldron's achievement has been to draw without equivocation on the heritage of the past and yet create vibrant and compelling images that could belong only to the present.

Colin J. Bailey, B.A., Ph.D., FSA, FSAScot, Member International Association of Art Critics (AICA-UK)

2. Bull on Skye, ÂŁ1500 watercolour and gouache, 2009, initialled, 12 x 40.5 cm

To order phone 01572 821424

3. A Greek Door, ÂŁ850 watercolour, 2009, initialled, 23 x 17 cm

4. Blue Greek Window

(In Paleochora, Crete), ÂŁ950 egg tempera on board, 2003 initialled, 25.7 x 20.2 cm

5. Rooks Descending, Slawston Hill, ÂŁ1500 egg tempera and watercolour, 2009, initialled, 13.5 x 40 cm

6. Egg Shell and Bottle, ÂŁ450 watercolour and gouache, 2008, initialled 11 x 8.5 cm

7. Garlic, ÂŁ450 watercolour and acrylic, 2009, initialled 9.5 x 11 cm

8. Cardoon, ÂŁ900 acrylic on panel, 2007, initialled, 18 x 25 cm

9. Relationships Between Pears, ÂŁ2500 acrylic on panel, 2007, initialled, 25 x 54 cm

10. Still Life with Egg and Glass,

ÂŁ800 oil on board, 2006, initialled 19 x 16.2 cm

11. Crumpled Paper, ÂŁ350 acrylic on board, 1999, initialled, 9.5 x 10 cm

12. Organic Leek, ÂŁ2000 acrylic on panel, 2005, initialled, 21 x 53 cm

13. Going to the Rag Market, ÂŁ1250 pencil, 2007, initialled, 32 x 44.5 cm

14. Cairn on Cross Fell, ÂŁ1500 watercolour and gouache, 1997 initialled, 32 x 23.5 cm

15. A Winter View from Slawston Hill, ÂŁ4000 acrylic on board, 2009, initialled, 25 x 70 cm

To order phone 01572 821424

16. The Owl Tree, ÂŁ1200 egg tempera, 2007, initialled, 20 x 28 cm

17. Open Window, ÂŁ600 pencil, 1992, signed, 17.5 x 23 cm

18. Awakening, ÂŁ1200 watercolour and gouache, 2007, initialled, 13.5 x 35.3 cm

19. A Bowl of Strawberries, ÂŁ1200 acrylic on board, 2007, initialled, 21 x 26 cm

20. A Peeled Banana, ÂŁ900 gouache and pencil, 2010, initialled, 18 x 27 cm

21. A Small Gourd, £600 gouache and acrylic, 2008, initialled 12 x 19 cm

22. Garlic Corms, £950 gouache on board, 2008, initialled 14 x 31 cm

23. Red Pepper, ÂŁ950 egg tempera on board, 2006, initialled, 14.5 x 24.2 cm

24. Harlequin with Playful Peppers, ÂŁ2500 acrylic on panel, 2005, initialled, 32.5 x 38 cm

25. Here Comes the Sun,

ÂŁ2250 gouache on board, 2007 initialled, 51.5 x 38 cm

26. Driftwood, Sea Shell and Stone II, ÂŁ900 acrylic on panel, 2000, initialled, 11 x 20.3 cm

27. Sea Shells and Stones, ÂŁ950 acrylic on board, 2005, initialled, 11 x 12 cm

28. Beachcombings, ÂŁ1250 watercolour, gouache and acrylic, 2009, initialled, 15.3 x 27 cm

29. Window Light, ÂŁ650 egg tempera on board, 2006, initialled, 12.5 x 23.5 cm

To order phone 01572 821424

30. Terry, ÂŁ1200 silverpoint, 2008, initialled 26.5 x 21 cm

31. Mysterioso, ÂŁ1200 silverpoint, 2009, initialled 36 x 32 cm

BIOGRAPHY

RECENT SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

Born 1953. Studied Stourbridge College of Art and Wolverhampton Polytechnic Faculty of Art and Design.

Graduated BA Hons Art & Design 1976. Since 1976 has worked as a full time practising artist, exhibiting nationally and internationally, receiving numerous awards and prizes. Work is included in many private collections worldwide and public and private collections in the UK. Elected Member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists 2009.

Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions 1983, 84, 85, 86, 92, 93, 94, 96, 99, 2000,01,03,04,05,09 Royal Birmingham Society of Artists 2007-09 Artifex Galleries, West Midlands 2006-09 The Birmingham Art Fair 2008 Goldmark Gallery, Uppingham, Rutland 1988-2009 John Noott Gallery, Broadway, Worcs 2008 Leicester Society of Artists, Leicester Museum and Art Gallery 1987-2009 The City Gallery, Leicester 1988-2009 The Hunter Gallery, Long Melford, Suffolk 2008, 09 The Piccadilly Gallery, Cork St, London 1981-96 International Contemporary Art Fairs, Switzerland and London 1981-96 Royal Society of British Artists, The Mall Galleries, London 1998 The Discerning Eye 1992, 95 Hunting Group Art Prizes Finalists 1988, 89, 91 Ombersley Gallery, Worcs 1980-2004

COLLECTIONS INCLUDE Sir Stuart Rose The Lord Annan East Midlands Arts West Midlands Arts Association Basildon Arts Trust

A NOTE ON SILVERPOINT Silverpoint is drawing using a fine silver rod on a carefully prepared gesso ground on heavyweight paper board or panel. It is a subtle, delicate and precise medium best suited to carefully planned work rather than the spontaneous or gestural, particularly as silverpoint marks cannot be erased other than by careful and gentle use of a blade. It was in most common use in the 15th Century by artists such as D端rer, before the development of graphite and the pencil, but is now rarely used or known about.

When I first tried it years ago I found its lack of tonal range, as compared to graphite, a frustrating disadvantage, but now realise that this is its unique quality and beauty. I love it for its strangely ethereal quality. The drawings have a dreamlike, timeless feeling as of things seen through a veil. A contemporary subject drawn in silverpoint can have an atmosphere of detached reality belonging to no particular period in time.

D.W.

www.dylanwaldron.co.uk

32. Sunday Morning, ÂŁ950 pencil, 2006, initialled, 18.5 x 29 cm

GOLDMARK GALLERY UPPINGHAM RUTLAND LE15 9SQ 01572 821424 Open Monday to Saturday 9.30 - 5.30, Sunday 2.30 - 5.30 and Bank Holidays www.goldmarkart.com www.dylanwaldron.co.uk