ALL IMAGES from 'Toward the Light by Pip Dickens' a touring exhibition, Bradford Museums & Galleries, supported by the Arts Council of England. http://www.bradfordmuseums.org/whatson/ontour/pipdickens.php for touring exhibition enquiries
Extract from exhibition catalogue:
Pip Dickens is an inveterate flirter with the alchemy of paint. In her paintings the hegemony of surface is constantly usurped. If the alchemist was consumed by the desire to convert base metal into gold, then Dickens is consumed by the need to transform a flat two-dimensional surface into a platform from which the access into an ambiguous three-dimensional space can be achieved. Her paintings operate on several levels, however, not just those of dimensionality, but also those of meaning, reference and the aesthetic. The laminae of their complex ontology perform a slow choreography in Dickens' paintings, we are offered various options as to how to perceive them, there is the abstract, there is the topographical and there is the narrative, each offering us an entry into either the reality of the illusion or the illusions of reality. As in Salome's 'Dance of the Seven Veils', as we accept the invitation to enter into her paintings, Dickens reveals to us layer after layer of meaning, leading to an ultimate essence, the perception of which will always be uniquely our own.If we are to give credence to an artist's vision we are obliged to enter into a suspension of disbelief. We are not witnessing here simply the adroit application of paint to a two dimensional support, we are not even witnessing the pictorial reproduction of some 'thing', but we are being allowed the privilege of entering into a private world, where any 'thingness' is not only unique, but mutable, this is a world that most of us keep hidden, not necessarily because we are secretive, but because we don't possess the means or the skills to express it...The alchemy of paint continues to open up a whole tranche of possibilities and parameters, pointing towards a divergent range of ways to go, both spatial and temporal, and artists such as Pip Dickens are helping it on its way, through the synergy of technique and imagination, and a dialogue between the literary and the aesthetic. Pip Dickens, like many committed contemporary painters has an intuitive approach to the painted surface, this, combined with her inherent skill leaves us anticipating and wondering about the directions that her painting will take in the future, as it continues to evolve."The Alchemy of the Surface: The Paintings of Pip Dickens" by Roy Exley 2010. ISBN 9780946657650 Extract from catalogue printed on the occasion of solo exhibition 'Toward the Light by Pip Dickens', Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford. Supported by the Arts Council of England. Touring Exhibition. 2010-2012
Pip Dickens
London
also Yorkshire
United Kingdom
Europe
