Human Clay Catalogue

Human Clay Revisited March 8 - April 20 2014 Artspace The Ropewalk, Maltkiln Road, Barton upon Humber, North Lincolnshire DN18 5JT. 01652 660380 www.the-ropewalk.co.uk Studio Eleven 11 Humber street Kingston Upon Hull HU1 1TG 01482 229600 www.studioeleven.co.uk

Human Clay Revisited In 1976 there was an exhibition at The Hayward Gallery in London named The Human Clay. At a time when abstraction and minimalism predominated in art schools and contemporary galleries the show attempted to establish the relevance of figurative work as an important artistic activity. The case was bolstered by an article, or perhaps more accurately, a treatise by the painter Ron Kitaj who strongly supported and promoted figurative art and its standing in a post Abstract Expressionist western art world. Kitaj as an artist and educator was keen to see good figurative drawing given importance and status particularly in our art schools where Art Language advocates had attempted to suggest that painting was dead.

The original exhibition showed the work of 36 artists that Kitaj promoted as “The School of London.” Kitaj pointed out that London boasted many artists who were prepared to work outside the rigid avant-gardism of the time. “The bottom line is that there are artistic personalities in this small island more unique and strong and I think numerous than anywhere in the world outside America’s jolting artistic vigour… There is a substantial School of London … if some of the strange and fascinating personalities you may encounter here were given a fraction of the international attention and encouragement reserved in this barren time for provincial and orthodox vanguardism, a School of London might become even more real than the one I have construed in my head.”

Nearly thirty eight years later painting is still around and this small exhibition scratches the surface of current figurative art in the UK as a reminder that many artists still find inspiration in engaging with figurative work and communicating their ideas through representational painting and representational abstraction. This show brings together artists from a wide geographical background who are not a “school” but nonetheless are coherent in the context of this show.

The artists here, eleven painters and one sculptor, use figures in much of their work either as central to the work or certainly important to their work. All are professional artists showing regularly in the UK. The images and sculpture on show are diverse and of high quality touching upon realism, narrative, photorealism, romanticism and the “craft” and tradition of making work that can excite the viewer. What all the artists have in common is the need to include figuration and a commitment to good drawing.

This collaborative exhibition between The Ropewalk and Studio Eleven Gallery in Hull is a substantial reminder that the sort of art that Kitaj was concerned about all those years ago still has its torch bearers. It is a small reaffirmation that both painting and a concern with people have not gone away and that artists continue to make figurative art.

Rob Moore. Artist and Curator.

Sharon Winter

I paint about myself, my children, childhood memories and dreams. Memories return and ideas are created through reading stories or poetry. I aim to convey my feelings about these through the content, colour and abstract elements of the painting.

Red Shoes, Red Dress Oil/Gold Leaf on Board

Sally Gatie

People are the main source of inspiration for Sally Gatie.

She paints both large-scale and small-scale artworks, using oil on canvas. Her love of pattern and texture is obvious in her expressive mark making techniques, depicting the figure gently cradled within a sea of patterned fabric. At first glance, the figures look at rest and peaceful, but steadily the viewer becomes aware that in fact the paintings are energetic, restless and animated. Sally uses the folds, shapes, intricate patterns and lively use of colour and brushwork to make the eye move around the canvas surface. There is a tension between the tenderness of the figure and the unease of the chaos created by the patterned surface.

Ruby Bloom Oil on Canvas

Neil Moore

All my work is about people – for me they are the only subject. Some images relate to those I know and some to my experience of society (either directly or through the arts and media). I am continually perplexed by people, both individually and collectively. The paintings are my attempt to give some coherence to experiences that concern, intrigue or amuse me. The images are purely intuitive. Ideas may be ‘screened’ to avoid clichés or sentimentality but generally I don’t analyse too much. They then reveal something of myself to myself (sometimes things that I would prefer not to have known).

Despite the apparent clarity, they are not intended to be taken literally – they are visual metaphors. My experience of life, in common with almost everyone, is unremarkable. In general we share the same concerns and although I paint to understand - not to be understood, I hope that my paintings are in some way contribute some insight by reflecting the society in which we all live.

Solstice Oil on Canvas

Simon Burton

Burton’s paintings have a tendency to disorientate us even when he depicts recognizable imagery. His narratives tend to be ambiguous and certainly with no specific conclusion; figures are often on the brink of discovery or revelation. They inhabit liminal spaces and find themselves held between past and present. There is a sense of pause in each work, which heightens the feeling of the impending chance for change. Each of his characters is seeking; they search for meaning through history, habit, or adventure. There may be no answers but they will endeavor in the absurd or the useless, in a hope to make something known.

Where am I from, who am I, where am I going Oil on Canvas

Corrie Chiswell

Chiswell’s art embraces realism but this direct representation of nature is only a means to an end. Her art does not simply depict but endeavours to evoke through a visual language those things we do not see. Her perception of reality can be compared to a crime scene where clues are left to indicate what is happening. In much of her work she uses symbolism that embraces a dual meaning and frequently an opposing one.

This visual ambiguity contributes to the dreamlike quality of the work and acknowledges the canvas as a portal to another world where there is freedom to create or manipulate anything. Through this symbolism she invites the viewer to decipher an underlying cryptic narrative that explores her interaction with the world. Although the work is often intense and introspective it still challenges the viewer to explore and recognise feelings of common experience.

Dream of Flight Oil on Canvas

Stewart Kelly

I make observational drawings in response to the human form.

I work intuitively to create expressive drawings that aim to capture the subtleties found in both gesture and movement. I record my responses spontaneously, focusing almost entirely on the subject, unaware of the image evolving on the paper.

As the lines accumulate and overlap, the image becomes abstracted. The figures become less recognizable almost camouflaged amongst the multitude of lines. The accumulation of line seeks to create a deliberate ambiguity resulting in an image which is open to interpretation from the viewer.

Emerging Ink on Paper

Jake Attree

The paintings in this exhibition are derived from two very specific events – a rehearsal by Northern Broadsides of “Medea” (not a conscious choice, it just happened to be the Company’s next production and my studio was so cold I had asked their Artistic Director, Barrie Rutter, if I could draw them in rehearsal) and the smaller painting is based on drawings I made of a Hindu wedding. None of the paintings is about “Medea” or a Hindu wedding in any narrative, linear sense – and so it is with all my work, the images are formulated from something I have drawn and then hopefully develop a life of their own and become a plastic fact that is wholly separate from but totally dependent upon its source. But, as Paul Cezanne said, “All discussions on art are almost totally useless…” Ultimately, the work must speak for itself… or not…

He is represented by Messums in London and internationally.

Three Figures with Water and Distant Buildings Oil on Canvas

Bren Head

My compositions are intuitive and evolve from the act of ‘doing’ not planning. My process involves many days of work which gets painted over and obscured. I know that the work underneath is necessary and vital to the evolvement of the finished piece. The images may be partially destroyed and then re-worked in order to produce dense, textured and eroded surfaces. This covering, change and layered process is an essential part of the development and evolution of the painting.

Relying on memory I create finished work that is abstracted and more expressive than representational. The majority of my recent work has been preoccupied with the figure as a central motif for the pictures.

Lyke Wake Walk Mixed Media on Board

Steve Whitehead

I am a painter who mostly makes ‘realistic’ images of landscapes, both ‘natural’ and ‘urban.’ The inclusion of figures in my paintings is an aspect of the work that gives me some anxiety. To figure or not to figure?

Figures, if I choose to include them at all, serve to support the landscape narrative. That is an important role – the figure as observer, as occupant, as cipher, or even as a measure of scale, has an honourable tradition in painting. I often find myself thinking of Friedrich when considering the addition of figures – the gazer, the wanderer, the almost silhouette.

Jubilee Bridge Oil on Canvas

Linda Ingham

In my work I am looking at the fabric of the land and a marriage between this and the outer shell of the self and spaces that we inhabit. The flow and pulse of The Humber estuary reveals and conceals bringing to and fro lives and deaths.

In the Near Horizons and Easter Self-Portrait series, I attempt to explore how conceptions of art-historical and contemporary popular culture may be skewed by the inclusion of a middle-aged female figure and elements of social history and imagery, whilst adapting traditional processes during the making.

New Horizons 1 Oil on Canvas

Laurence Edwards

Laurence returned to his native Suffolk, after leaving the RCA and studying traditional casting in India, in 1990. He is now well established with a foundry and studios on the edge of a Suffolk marsh. His sculptures reflect the fusion of figures with marsh detritus, combined with the involved lost wax method of casting. He has refined his own working methods with the metal, leaving the scars of process to reflect history and clues of journeys taken.

He is represented by Messum’s in London and internationally.

Loaded Bronze

David Hancock

Sea of Ice Acrylic on Canvas

My work concentrates on the notion of a ‘Generation X.’ I attempt to make palpable the psychological gap between the world that we physically experience and the psychological states through which it is apprehended. I achieve this by painting in a hyper-realist technique, using this I attempt to show a form of escapism, whether through youth subcultures, the fantasy worlds of computer games or by directly referencing historical utopian visions. My work is rooted in the tradition of Romanticism. The signifiers are taken from historical works of art, sources and themes.

These are suggested through the appropriation of composition, gestures or objects.

The Human Clay is a collaborative exhibition between The Ropewalk and Studio Eleven Gallery in Hull