INTROSPECTION exhibition catalogue

INTROSPECTION

Beth Carter solo exhibition November 20 - January 18

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View Art Gallery presents a group exhibition

INTROSPECTION June 2021

ViewArtGallery.co.uk for enquiries: contact@viewartgallery.co.uk

TERESA WELLS RICHARD TWOSE FRAN WILLIAMS MATT SMALL ANDY PRICE

INTROSPECTION During the COVID pandemic lockdown, many artists experienced an intense period of creativity stimulated from a different inspiration.

In isolation, some artists had limited external stimulus for their creativity and so looked internally at their inner thoughts. This inward exploration became deeper and more revealing; their artistic mode was one of introspection.

View Art Gallery presents an exhibition of artists whose introspection took them to a new place. The subject matter varies from social commentary, autobiographical narrative and restorative healing. The artwork is personal, emotional and wholly relatable.

Teresa Wells deals with the subject of loss and the hoplessness of broken relationships, through distance, separation or death.

Richard Twose reflects on his early life and the person he was struggling to find whilst battling with the world.

Fran WIlliams uses a medative state to extract deep emotions and guide her through the painting process.

Matt Small aims to give identity to homeless people through his 3D portraits made from discarded metal.

Andy Price was inspired by a found letter from a homeless person to create a painting full of social comment reflecting on COVID19.

@JonCraig_Photos

TERESA WELLS Teresa’s work expresses an array of emotions experienced during human separation. The psychological disconnections, the longing for love and the mourning of a lost relationship or even death, can all be seen and felt in her beautiful bronze sculptures, Loss and The Wish.

The sculptures work both individually and as a pair. The imagined relationship between man and woman is truly evocative.

A hand print on the back of the man in a closed, thoughtful pose, matches the hand of a woman reaching out. Her strained expression and tortured posture implies a desperate reach for something she cannot have.

Is the man in another place, haunted by his loss? Is the woman wishing for something that is unobtainable?

“Relationships end. Memories stay” LOSS 2021 bronze 52 x 52 x 42 cm 58 kg

@JonCraig_Photos

@JonCraig_Photos

“Beyond the wish lay a false hope” WISH 2021 bronze 60 x 37 x 42 cm 37 kg

RICHARD TWOSE Richard’s new work starts a personal journey into his early years of soul searching. Rebellious protesting and a complex family history are a catalyst for seeking resolution through his autobiographical paintings.

“At a time when identity is one of the overarching themes in culture and politics, working on these paintings has made me question how trustworthy notions of individual, let alone cultural, identity actually are. The paintings deconstruct then reconstruct my memories and family’s story from the facts, half-truths and myths I grew up with.”

Despite having a historical and personal narrative, many of the issues remain current and relevant today as we reflect on our own past and identity.

“I am searching for resolution, creating palimpset-like canvases, built up of fragments, like identity itself.”

Liberty Misleading The People (after Delacroix) Oil on board 62 X 83 cm

On Holiday (with Caravaggio) Oil on board 62 X 83 cm

Graven Images Oil on board 62 X 83 cm

My Dissent, My Discent Oil on board 62 X 83 cm

After Leonardo Flower Power Oil on board 83 X 62 cm

Oil on board 62 X 83 cm

FRAN WILLIAMS Fran paints from the inside out. From the first moment paint hits the surface, she enters a trance-like state and the subconcious takes over.

Stories start to appear and the end products show a beauty through struggle. Fran describes the process as cathartic and restorative healing.

In this 2021 collection we can see new media in the building of the layers for wich the artist is known. In addition to oil and acrylic, added and taken away, we now see a base layer of charcoal on paper and a top layer of thick resin.

These additional layers add more depth and texture but don’t detract from the powerful emotion that oozes from the paintings.

Initially, the paintings are a kind of self portrait, but as soon as the viewer is drawn in, the work becomes their own.

And If You Only Knew How Much You’d Come To Need Yourself Charcoal, pastel, resin on paper on board 50 x 50 cm

Left:

It All Brought Me To This Point

Charcoal, pastel, resin on paper on board 90 x 120 cm Right: Close-ups showing resin texture

And It Looks So Different Now Oil, acrylic, resin on board 30 x 30 cm

Realisations (Day by Day) Oil, acrylic, resin on board 30 x 30 cm

Looking For Source

Charcoal and resin on paper on board 42 x 60 cm

Flight of the Soul Machine

Charcoal and resin on paper on board 60 x 42 cm

Soothe

Charcoal and resin on paper on board 42 x 60 cm

MATT SMALL Matthew Small is a passionate believer in social inclusion and that, given the opportunities to be heard and respected, all individuals have something of value to contribute to society.

As an artist Matthew wants to change the negative pre conceptions of the people he feels are misunderstood. By painting young marginalized figures of society he allows the viewer to spend time with these people in the hope that a shared a sense of humanity, unrestricted by class and social boundaries, will arise.

Matthew’s artwork is a product of the urban environment. Collecting discarded obsolete objects he reappropriates these found materials into his portraits creating industrious sculptural constructions and canvases for his paintings.

These materials become integral in contributing to the ethos within his work.

Discarded metal, Discarded people

JB metal, and paint on oven panel 48 x 40 cm

Dev

metal and paint 54 x 45 cm

ANDY PRICE Andy tells us a heart-felt story of a homeless person. Having found a letter on a bridge during lockdown, he was haunted by the question of her whereabouts and her mental and physical health. This was the inspiration for a painting that comments on the the many issues and suffering that increased during lockdown.

View Art Gallery are planning a project with a charity to raise funds for homeless people in Bristol.

The project aims to use various methods to obtain donations. For every donation above a certain amount the donor will receive a print of the painting. All profits from the project will be given to the charity who will distribute as appropriate.

“I USED TO BE SOMEONE” acrylic on board 120 x 90 cm

During last year’s lockdown I made a series of walks around the Historic Bristol harbour, a distance of 3 miles. Walking in the summer light at dawn, I transitioned that strange nexus between late night and early day in the heart of a major city almost entirely deserted. The silent rhythm of these walks enticed an almost Proustian sensitivity to details I had hitherto overlooked. It was quite intoxicating. In the clear pollution free air, there was a sense that I was in an absurd post-apocalyptic film set.

One morning, passing over Pero’s footbridge I came across a small abandoned note from a homeless person. Taking photos, I moved on and yet this image stuck in my mind for months. This was a bridge symbolising Bristol’s part atonement to slavery and yet this note further reminded me of the inequities of luck, opportunity, security and even free will, especially with Covid19 raging.

I began to think about the note in relation to how it might become the central pageant to a painted tableau of my lived experiences (and yet by the nature of the imagery, hold a common bond to us all).

I then mused how my design might clash with the currently fashionable procession of crafted visceral mythology, all colliding online with computer controlled pageants of the bright and weirdly accomplished, projecting a happy branded world at peace and not as it happens, an unequal planet on the verge of ecological extinction.

Against this obvious mismatch I decided that if I was going to make this work a largely graphic, complex, clear, political, modest in scale and a dark subject everyone understands then as a contemporary anti “contemporary” painting, it would be interesting to experience it over and above the narrative, as something that might in a very small way seek to make the world a better place, not simply to own.

by Andy Price

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