“FIGURES” group exhibition Preview 7th November runs till 4th December 2009
This exhibition manifests as a dialogue of inter-personal relation between the body and artist. Each artist selected has witnessed the arresting magnitude of how light conjures emphasis of the human form. Our own body can present itself as creative shell, which to study, imitate, render and philosophise. Many artists in contemporary society study the human form as a starting line to begin their work. Assistant curator, Antria Pelekanou has written a short introduction to contemporary artists who find the body a respective elucidation towards examining society and philosophy. Stella Vine is famous for her Princess Diana painting and the macabre sarcasm that the painting conveys. She's done paintings of celebrities like Princess Diana, the Rolling Stones and even Frieda Kahlo, as well as many others, in addition to Moss and Pete Doherty. Her style represents a sort of post-pop nouveau British. [1] Most of her work holds on to those characteristics whist contradictive effects may occur such as the innocence of the painting. Dean Yeagle is most famous for his cartoon character “Mandy” and her daily based routine. Mandy allow us to dream of an alternative or parallel world where everything is perfect and innocent, whilst she reminds us that she is flat and unreal. She doesn’t use guns or karate chops – she’s just herself, a sexy but innocent and, I hope, charming character. I get a lot of fans from my websites, and a good number of projects come up as well.[2] John Currin, one of the most important and influential figurative painters of the 21st century conjoins traditional portraiture with contemporary to create his unique style. He disfigures the female form and especially the face, simultaneously the rest of the body is been either kept natural or is been exaggerated. [1] Nicole Weston [2] Dean Yeagle
Much of Toddy Hoare‘s work, unless commissioned specifically as a portrait or particular piece of sculpture, is based on Theology. Toddy tries to express something of biblical truth or beg theological reflection by the beholder. Eight panels the size of an average door, depict the call of the disciples and are on permanent loan to Burton Agnes Hall. Also 'The Stations of the Cross'; again eight panels of a similar size are displayed there, after a touring exhibition in 2007. Currently, Toddy is working on another set of 8 panels "The Stations of the Nativity." Meanwhile talks, sermons, quiet days using sculpture are a regular feature as Fresh Expressions in the Anglican Church, and part of various Arts Weeks around Oxford.
Graham Burquest studied at the University of Sunderland and gained a BA (Hons) Degree in Fine Art during 1989 to 1992. Graham works at the Sutton Coldfield college in the West Midlands as a Lecturer in Art and Design. Upon leaving University, Graham moved to Liverpool. Here he rented a space at Arena Studios, where he was able to develop his early work. Graham stayed until 1998, following which he took up employment as an art lecturer. Working in various colleges and leading up living in Birmingham. During this time, Graham experimented with various ideas and mediums within his art practice. Graham specified within photography and digital imaging during this period. In 2007, He made the decision to return to painting and concentrate much more of his time upon its development. This has continued to the present day
Carolina Khouri was born in Lebanon, grew up in Poland and she has been living in London for five years where she graduated as an interior designer. Carolina has no formal art training. Her art mentors were the established artists, who inspired her to penetrate innovative techniques and styles. Carolina aimed at finding the expression and manner that her art can appear in its individual recognition and to define her own singular identity as an artist. For over the past decade many of her paintings has been sold directly to the private collection in Poland, Germany, USA, Lebanon, UK. Artist’s Statement: Strictly Woman is the first series to emerge from Carolina's studio in the warehouse district in north London. The series, which was first conceived 8 years ago, is a progression of her previous work, focusing on the embattled image of women in modern art. Carolina's canvases are intimate pieces, each with their own personality. Some are serene and contemplative. Other are more dynamic, hinting at an undercurrent of violence or ferocity. All are deeply sensual. All portray women with courage. Independence in their own way. And though these artworks are decorative they are not vapid. For Carolina, they suggest the strength and substance of woman in all her diversity; her particular characteristics and qualities of nature – her steadfastness, her potency, her poise. The female form has been co-opted and exploited throughout much of art and advertising history. In Strictly Woman this trend is turned on its head; 'woman' is reclaimed and imbued with power, given a voice of her own with which to communicate. The viewer develops their own relationship with the 'woman' in the canvas. She, however, remains unequivocal, untouchable, remote; reluctant to divulge anything of her true self/nature to the viewer. The individual artworks in Strictly Woman have been created through a process of painting over collage. The original images of woman used for the collages are kept anonymous. The idea is to create the character. Personality. The composition has then been transformed into a state of feeling and sensuality through the application of colour. Carolina's nomadic lifestyle over the past decade has meant that previously the project has had to exist in a portable size. Now, with access to a studio in London, she has been enabled to let the vision grow. The big canvases empower the creation.
Caroline Fulton studied at Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, 2000 during 2004 for a BA Hons Fine Art. The drawings and paintings of Caroline Fulton are portraits, animal portraits. These portraits are an attempto confront the term animal used by people to signify the notion of an absolute other: whatever lives on earth, which is not me, as a human. Her work is a rejection of generality and an exploration and embracing of personality and particularism, extended to the other life forms with which we share our planet. The paintings depict each subject within different families of beings and evoke the presence of these individuals, which have names, therefore a soul and a story. Human cultural elements are referenced as part of the pictorial habitat, providing a contextual framework for each species she devotes a series to; Elephants woven into a collage of Indian motifs, or Rhinos coloured by the pattern making of Southern Africa. Living presently in Morocco, Caroline has most recently focused on the ubiquitous Donkeys and Camels. These portraits typically show the subject within an environment of the Berber carpet patterns and intricate plaster and tile work found in Moroccan homes and streets. While the paintings immediately strike one with their richly decorative aesthetic, the symbolic colouration and traditional ornamentation is deliberately employed to create an atmosphere that expresses and reveals the soulfulness of each Animal subject. This conveys a sense of both their familiarity and exile in a predominantly human world.
Ricki Klages currently works as the Head, Department of Art, at the University of Wyoming. Ricki completed her studies at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM during 1993 for an MFA. The artist developed her work at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine during a Summer Residency 1993 with full scholarship. Ricki has worked professionally as an artist for the past twenty years, and over time one thing has remained constant: the influence of landscape. Her paintings reflect the influence of the places she has seen, visited, or lived in. Although she has lived predominantly in the American West, the thirst for the inspiration of new places, landscapes and other environments has been constant. She has had the good fortune to live several years in Northern Italy. All of these environments are referenced either directly or more subtly within her paintings. Her paintings are a mix of straightforward landscape representation, dream imagery, intensive observation and subtly startling images that incorporate elements of magic, still life and the figure. Her current work, under the umbrella title of, “Wish You Were Here”, involves my constant wishing to be ‘elsewhere’. Ricki is a restless traveler and she is always missing the places she has left behind, yet always yearning for another place to go; a new adventure. Metaphorically, the ‘rain’ of objects, which create a veil in front of the landscape background, reference tears and melancholy, hope and regret, and a slow and sometimes painful passage of time. Ricki has recently completed a new and ongoing body of work which references the shrines and significant spiritual way stations in Italy and depicts the ruins of both ancient and modern houses. These paintings were inspired by the four years she lived in Northern Italy. Ricki was struck by the ancient ‘house’ shaped niches in Pompeii and how similar they were to the roadside Catholic shrines dotted throughout the countryside. These paintings serve as my homage to the history and constant beauty of Italy and how ruins, both ancient and modern contain a poignant and relevant memory of the people who lived there.
Linda O’ Grady graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 1992 with a BA (Hons) in Illustration and painting. Linda was exhibited in the 1993 BP Portrait Award at the NPG in London, and have been exhibiting and selling her work across the country since graduating. Linda currently work in a studio in the west end of Glasgow, where Linda thoroughly enjoy being in the company of other artists and find her creative juices flow very freely! Her portraits have been published in a number of Dorling Kindersley How to books. Linda believes art should be available to all and Linda is trying particularly to dispel the myth that real art, and a portrait in particular is hugely expensive or that you have to sit in a draughty artists studio for months on end. Linda would like to feel that there is a place for her paintings in any environment. After being solely a portrait painter for nearly twenty years, Linda is currently enjoying the resurgence in popularity of figurative art across the country. There is endless inspiration to be found in the human figure and no shortage of subject matter in our daily lives. Linda loves to paint the nude; the fluidity of flesh in all its forms and has recently become absorbed in the burlesque scene. Beautifully posed bodies with stunning costumes and a little dose of eroticism! Linda continues to paint portraits as well, religiously entering all the portrait annual exhibitions she can, but now Linda has a greater variety of work to show, all still telling some story or other, and what that story is very much depends on what you, the viewer, sees.
Louise Michelle Reade won the Weston College Governor’s prize for outstanding achievements in the Creative Arts during her studies for a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at Weston College, in 2004. In the same year, Louise attended the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff until 2007 to study for a BA (hons) in Fine Art. During her foundation course, Louise developed an expressive style of painting that captured rapid brush strokes. Her work was dramatic and mainly figurative. Concentrating on approach and process. Louise created colourful works, which were the embodiment of energy. Her process included using her fingers to implement the paint in a defining texture. She continued to develop this during her first years at university, which soon progressed onto her paintings being a little more controlled than her usual expressive style. In the final year of her University degree, she focused particularly on portraits. They were bold pieces with large areas of colour, and in some cases fragmented. This progressed onto the portraits being an abstract, yet, linear line, still with a large area of colour to complement it. The artist Gary Hume, who Louise had used as part of her research, largely inspired these final pieces.In the year after her degree, her progress had been limited. Louise made a few more paintings of portraits, but her work was mainly kept in sketchbooks as drawings of things around her, or from photos Louise had taken. Her most recent work has been inspired by a couple of trips Louise made to Venice and New York. These trips hugely motivated her, and she feels she is progressing as an artist, as her interests are taking shape once again. Louise became particularly keen on developing work from her "Bikes in New York" piece. She was fascinated by chained up bikes she saw in New York City when she visited in December 2008. They all had a similar character about them, a sense of abandonment. They were rusted, and some with missing wheels; they were everywhere.
Dameon Priestly graduated at the University of Ulster in 1988 for BA Hons 2:1 in Fashion and Textiles - Design and Illustration. Dameon won the award of Irish Design graduate of the year. The preoccupation and inspiration for Dameon Priestly's paintings is the story behind the picture - what is not seen. Is there such a thing as an average man or woman? Is there ever such a thing as an average day? What goes on in the minds of the sexes and what happens behind closed doors? Dameon's paintings engage in a series of narratives which subtly weave their way through the paintings: a visual depiction of what can lie beneath the surface; at times in a seemingly innocent image. Dameon's view of the world may be termed dark by some; his series of paintings reveal the 'strangeness' concealed behind the seemingly banal and random monotony of lifes' experiences and human behaviour. The stories they tell are those which the viewer does not necessarily want to know; and yet forces them to fill in that which is not always apparent, resulting in the uncomfortable recognition of a disturbing undertone. Often Dameon depicts people seeking an alternative life and sees straight to the fragile hearts of his characters without ever becoming sentimental.
