Output details

Exhibits at Grey Matters exhibition. Untitled 8 paintings six 30”x20” and two 60”x42” oil and acrylic on canvas

Rationale for Grouping

The Grey Matters exhibition was shown at an international central London gallery with Dr Helena Capcova, a Japan based writer and curator. It grew from an exchange exhibition involving researchers from Northampton and Plymouth and subsequent discussions between myself and Dr J Love. We were invited speaker/ panel members at the Land/Water International Symposium Landscape & the Metaphysical, at The University of Plymouth. ideas explored in the Grey Matters exhibition were further explored/disseminated through both the symposium and following electronic publication. The exhibition was selected as ‘top 5 exhibitions to visit’ by Whitechapel Art Gallery’s First Thursday event. A tour and talk about the exhibition was arranged by the Whitechapel, Gallery assisting in further dissemination to a wider public. A funded catalogue also demonstrated the importance/significance of this research.

Grey Matters (exhibition - 2009)

This exhibition consisted of 8 paintings alongside works by Jo Love, the two largest were specifically for the exhibition space. The exhibition explored tensions between the handmade and the technological surface via monochrome/grey images and also differences and similarities emerging from the juxtaposition of paintings and digital prints which deliberately reverse some of the usual expectations concerning the handmade and the mechanically reproduced within their respective fields. Alongside this the work explored issues concerning representation and emptiness via the vehicle of the landscape genre.

Landscape and the Metaphysical (Symposium/ electronic publication – 2010)

My paper explored representation and emptiness in landscape painting, discussing the metaphysical possibilities within landscape painting and charting the evolution of my painting from landscape to abstraction. It explored how landscape and emptiness, having in the past been vehicles for an exploration of the metaphysical are now often seen as problematic. Ideas embodied in the Grey Matters exhibition were further explored and disseminated i.e. tensions between the handmade and the technological surface and the juxtaposition of paintings and digital prints which deliberately reverse usual expectations.