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Casper Scarth Page 1 | 2 | 3 | Biography | Information & News |
new work:
Transistor is the title I have given to a body of drawings which began life as a mishmash of information dating back to the late 90s when I spent a 5year period working and living in Rotterdam. At the time I made a significant creative shift in my paintings away from the rural landscape towards more gritty urban influences. This led to a number of experimental exhibitions exploiting harbour warehouses, the Rotterdam underground and temporary exhibition spaces both in Rotterdam and The Hague.
The original drawings for ‘Transistor’ were eclectic ranging from film stills, street rubbings and signage to childhood illustrations and topical newspaper cuttings. Ideas were conceived within sketchbooks which subsequently shifted to paper when travelling and moving to London.
For a while ‘Transistor’ became dormant. Some aspects entered a filtering process as I attempted to prioritise information. What is clear is that I brought with me from Rotterdam to London a visual language, limited luggage (all possessions were sold in a single transaction at that time) and unresolved thoughts.
The first attempt to reduce, abstract and capture some of the vitality of these disparate ideas came about in ‘Prime Cut,’ Ada Street Gallery in 2006:
‘With ‘Prime Cut’ Casper Scarth explores the thin line between hedonism, excessive behaviour and decay. Lifted from various sources of media, these larger than life portraits capture young adults caught in unguarded moments of total collapse. Isolated and stripped of a clear context these colourful paintings give way to the unsettling sense of inner fragility. Scarth’s paintings amplify the insecurity of modern living’ Lieke Kester (2006)
Since the latter part of 2013 I have finally begun to pull together all the elements of ‘Transistor’. In many respects time and physical distance have given me creative space to revisit this work. In amongst these disjointed images of life and madness there is finally overview, and a sense of clarity. It might be closure or even a new beginning. artist information:
I would describe myself as an outsider, born in England, educated in France, art schooled in Exeter and Rotterdam.
My work primarily responds to the theme of intuition and memory. Whilst living in Holland I was moved by the manner of work of both René Daniëls and Daan van Golden (who kindly came to my studio). In turn I have also visited contemporary artists I admire such as Phoebe Unwin to witness their practice and look at the role memory plays as part of a creative stimulus. The visual narrative of my paintings sometimes draws on recurring themes such as the loss of innocence and the hostility of living within in a globalised community. Paintings shown at KESTER+BLES Gallery in 2010 were inspired by my immediate surroundings. Forsaken streets, derelict construction sites and obscure playgrounds which offered seemingly familiar but strangely oppressive environments - a testimony to the fact that these places do not always provide inhabitants with what they were designed to offer: access, shelter and recreation. There was a formal structure to each work aiming to reflect the stranglehold that architecture has on the urban jungle through what is essentially the manipulation of nature. My initial observational studies at the time often became surreal in an effort to balance what I saw with the information drawn from my emotive experience. For example Ping Pong 2010 (image no 4, page 3) was developed over months using a washing-up brush to drag acrylic off the canvas as colour and shapes were built up, leaving threads of paint to become etched into the canvas. The appeal of this subject was the idea of failed collective leisure…for most of the winter this solid concrete structure sits grimly and patiently like a small bunker adorning the odd can of lager. In this particular piece I was searching for a sense of control and tension. Pool (image no 3, page 3) on the other hand was far more eclectic using geometric pattern not so much as to create a rhythm but to establish a kind of barrier in the foreground of the painting. I continue to exploit imagery from earlier sources within my work and in this case the triangular shaped shutters relate back to my French childhood home but also to my encounter with René Daniëls' bow-tie motif. Casper scarth 2014 |
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