Balmy Daze is a showcase of new work and recent projects by selected artists. Collectively, the works included in the exhibition present an unseen and unexpected twist that originated in the ordinary and everyday. In varying degrees of subtlety, each piece, chosen specifically for the exhibition by the artists, re-examines the difference between a chance encounter and a staged composition, between what is real and what is illusion.
In the thick impasto paintings by Melanie Comber, paint is systematically layered upon the surface and a final dusting of pigment reveals every mark that has been made in the process. In each work, there is a deliberate form- a line or circle- that is repeated, giving order and structure to the picture, despite what changes occur on the surface. They are not depictions of landscapes in the literal sense, but rather searches, physical and emotional, conducted on an unknown scale. Following graduation from Chelsea College of Art, Comber has had two solo exhibitions at Blue Gallery, London and was included in the NatWest Art Prize and British Abstract Painting 2001 at Flowers East.
William Cruickshank's sculptures and photographs play with commonplace items, manipulating and stretching the original intention of an object in order to discover other aspects of its usefulness or to undermine it completely. Level is placed on a steep incline, straining to maintain equilibrium; Heads captures a group of discarded mannequins, bobbing blithely in a watering hole, finally free from the restraints of a shop-front window. Cruickshank recently exhibited at the Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery in Out of Place.
Laura Ford's new sculpture Some Mother's Sons is a forlorn boy, laden down with a cumbersome pack. Despite his heavy camouflage gear, he is still craving attention. Some Mother's Sons is a precursor to the work in her October solo exhibition at the Centro de Arte de Salamanca, Spain, with an accompanying catalogue and essay by Dr David Lomas. The exhibition will later tour to public galleries around the UK including De La Warr Pavilion, Aberystwyth Arts Centre and Oriel Mostyn.
The slick surfaces of John Pomara's paintings initially seem haphazard, as if they were sheets of white paper holding a blurred musical composition. His technique, however, is highly considered and methodical. By manipulating drips of paint with a photocopier and then with a computer, he follows closely the circuit between the final image and its starting point. Pomara is a Texas based painter, with recent exhibitions at the Dallas Museum of Art and the Inman Gallery, Houston. He is on the faculty at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Matthew Radford's new paintings, with a metallic and industrial edge seem to emit light. The forms within an anonymous crowd are degraded and condensed by systems of imaging technology, tangling with the abstract codes and devices used to store and retrieve information. They are impossible to fully decipher; their ambiguity perhaps is a reminder of one's ephemerality. Radford is also currently exhibiting at Robert Miller Gallery, New York.
Zoe Walker's Honeysuckle for St John's was a recent commission for St John's Hospital, Livingston. Honeysuckle is known for its calming and therapeutic qualities in medicine. Yet Walker's flower is entirely fake, hand-made by a maxillio facial technician at the hospital, using the same silicone and paints used in cosmetic and reconstructive surgeries. Impossible to tell the difference between the real and prosthetic flower, Honeysuckle offers hope and encouragement for the convalescent patient undergoing treatment. Walker has been profiled in the June issue of Contemporary, and her recent collaboration In Search of a Small Planet with Neil Bromwich for TV Swansong has been reviewed in the summer issue of frieze. Upcoming exhibitions for Walker include Limbo-land at Berwick Gymnasium Art Gallery and Art + Mountains: Conquistadors of the Useless at the Alpine Club, London in October.
Please contact Mariska Nietzman for additional information or images.
Opening times Monday-Friday, 10.00-5.30, Saturday 10.30-1.00
(gallery closed 3-17 August and Saturdays in August)
Upcoming exhibition Zebedee Jones and Mark Sheinkman, 12 September-12 October 2002
