Carey Mortimer, 'Still Lifes'

Carey Mortimer

Carey Mortimer Still Lifes 11 – 28 May 2021

Preview Days:

Thursday 6 May: 12-6 Friday 7 May: 12-6 Saturday 8 May: 11-4 The entire exhibition can be viewed at www.thackeraygallery.com The exhibition continues until 1pm on Friday 28 May 2021 ALL WORK IS AVAILABLE TO VIEW & PURCHASE AS OF NOW

18 THACKERAY STREET

|

KENSINGTON

| LONDON W8 5ET

www.thackeraygallery.com | enquiries@thackeraygallery.com | 020 7937 5883 1

Still Lifes I never work out in the wild. I fill my studio with my forages, take a lot of photos and project them on the wall, hugely magnified, to see my subjects differently, to separate them from their origins. The way plants dry and decay interests me more than their green state.

Through painting I work out my reactions to outside events.The imagery is just as much a medium as the pigment or botanical inks, and it evolves gradually: an armchair as viewing point onto life going by, a featherwhite / gold prayer to safeguard the world, a scrap of fishing tackle – jewellery to alien eyes?

Working on horizontal panels rather than vertical walls gives me certain freedoms the ancients didn’t have. So does science. I know how far to push my materials, how much I can bastardise things. There’s a sacredness to the process, a kind of deep-dive meditative pathos. When a work is complete I just know.

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Flower of Maryam egg tempera on gessoed canvas – 31 x 31cm

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Me and Lily egg tempera, silver leaf on gessoed canvas - 97 x 72cm

Sketch on Gold Cistus Incanus : cistus incanus, egg tempera on gilded panel - 66 x 79cm

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Two Eggs egg tempera on gessoed canvas - 20 x 22cm

Notes from the Garden II botanical ink & silverpoint on gessoed panel - 46 x 46cm

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Desert Flower I botanical ink, egg tempera on gessoed canvas - 50 x 43cm

Desert Flower II botanical ink, egg tempera on gessoed canvas - 50 x 43cm

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La Poltrona II egg tempera on gessoed panel - 23 x 18cm

La Poltrona I egg tempera on gessoed panel - 23 x 18cm

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Prayer of the Heron fresco with egg tempera mounted on alveolum panel - 58 x 80cm

Moroccan Musings IV egg tempera on gessoed panel - 70 x 95cm

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Fragment fresco with silver leaf and egg tempera - 45 x 46cm

Wild egg tempera on gessoed panel - 57 x 44cm

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Moroccan Musings I egg tempera on gessoed panel - 22 x 22cm

Moroccan Musings III egg tempera on gessoed panel - 23 x 18cm

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Moroccan Musings II egg tempera on gessoed panel - 21 x 27cm

The Everlasting Cycle egg tempera on gessoed canvas - 31 x 30cm

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Liminal Zone fresco with egg tempera - 46 x 46cm

Riches to Rags fresco with egg tempera - 50 x 40cm

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Notes from the Garden I botanical ink, silverpoint and egg tempera on gessoed panel - 39 x 31cm

Rosy Garlic egg tempera on gessoed canvas - 56 x 52cm

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Hanging on a Line fresco with tung oil - 40 x 40cm

L’altare della cucina fresco - 27 x 25cm

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BIOGRAPHY Discovering fresco set Carey Mortimer on her path as an artist. After graduating from City and Guilds of London Art School in 1986, she studied under Italian restorer Leonetto Tintori, who introduced her to the medium of the ancients and encouraged her to unravel it.

Lime, sand, pigment, yolk . . . how to make new the alchemies of the past? Carey likes to unzip the science: fresco is painting turned to stone, egg tempera is hardening strings of protein, gold is stable and stays gold forever. First know the rules to break them. And if nature is already divine, why compete? Freed from its ordinary context, a gathered leaf / mermaid’s purse / bowl or feather can take on a different function altogether: ‘A painting is only a rearrangement of matter into another form.’ The artist as chemist of the imagination. The studio as crucible, microscope, chantry.

Past and present speak in their own ways. Alert to the languages of both, Carey blends age-old techniques and her own contemporary sensibility to create surprising visual poems. Her paintings acknowledge the difficult noise of our time, but by reminding us to see beauty they offer a healing perspective, and in doing so help restore balance.

A Dundee University MPhil, Carey has been exhibiting with the Thackeray Gallery since 1994.

Her work can be found in many public, private and corporate collections worldwide, including Aviva Headquarters, London; Farleigh Hungerford Castle; Firmdale Hotels, London; and Jones Day, London and New York.

Maria de Jong.

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Shall We Dance botanical ink, silverpoint and egg tempera on gessoed panel 40 x 34cm

First Published in 2021 by Thackeray Gallery Ltd, 18 Thackeray Street, Kensington, London.

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18 THACKERAY STREET | KENSINGTON | LONDON W8 5ET www.thackeraygallery.com | enquiries@thackeraygallery.com | 020 7937 5883

Opening Hours: Tuesday to Friday, 10am - 6pm, & Saturday, 11am - 4pm Private Appointments Available