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LANDSCAPE; RURAL VS URBAN
23rd June – 3rd July 2016
Preview: Wednesday 22nd June 6pm – 8:30pm
The Brick Lane Gallery-The Annexe, 93-95 Sclater Street, E1 6HR
BELLA TCHICOUREL | CLIFFORD HOW | DAGUR JÓNSSON | DAVIDE PALMIERI | KATIE TOOMBS | MICHAEL CLARKE | MIGUEL RUBIO | PETER BRIMELOW | ZAK VAN BILJON
The Brick Lane Gallery is proud to present our Summer LANDSCAPE; RURAL VS URBAN group exhibition. The show explores our different surroundings and how we interact with them. From natural landscapes that allow us to discover diverse flora and fauna to brick and concrete built cities representing urban settings. The show allows us to understand these spaces, their changes and development and even their decay.
One of these artists, Clifford How presents examples of Tasmania’s rugged and largely uninhabited, West Coast. They are moments in time captured on the famed Gordon River, which starts its journey on elevated country and snakes its way down to the wild Indian Ocean on Tasmania’s West Coast, which interestingly claims the cleanest air on earth. With Zak van Biljon’s clever infra-red photographs, this use of film when processed converts all organic green matter bright pink turning nature on its head. Bella Tchicourel presents energetic and dominant pieces with a composition of see through layers, which give the work depth and hint that there is more behind the scene, inviting the viewer into exploring further. This suggestion is accentuated through the use of evanescent lines and expressive brush strokes, resulting in vibrant dynamic artworks. All the artists exhibiting in this group exhibition, invite us to navigate and experience diverse sceneries and become part of them.
You are warmly welcome to join us for a drink with the artists at the opening night of LANDSCAPE; RURAL VS URBAN at The Brick Lane Gallery-The Annexe open from 6pm-8.30pm on Wednesday 8th June 2016.
FEATURED ARTISTS;
Bella Tchicourel (from Israel) grew up in Israel and studied Graphic art and Art history in Haifa. In 1983 she moved to the Netherlands and settled in Maastricht. When she discovered that she could express herself better through painting than with graphics, she started to paint. In the first half of 2004, she made her debut with a group exhibition in The Hague followed by a solo exhibition in Maastricht. The tulip, in all it's forms, is combined with common everyday household articles; a bucket, a fluttering curtain behind which stands a woman pensively gazing out, pieces of old tiles, a line of text, still faintly visible. The most striking aspect of her work is its transparency. There is also movement in the stillness, the story continues. This movement is most evident in the series of paintings inspired by dance. The dancing figures appear able to continue the choreography, having only paused mid-flight for a split second. The most striking features in Tchicourels' work are the colours. Dominant deep red, clear yellow, absorbent pink, shimmering indigo and glowing aquamarine.
"These are the colours I brought with me from my youth in Israel"
Clifford How (from Australia) is a self-taught artist who has been painting for 16 years, born and raised on the small island of Tasmania, south of the main country of Australia. He is currently represented by Handmark Gallery in Tasmania. He has received many awards for his work and this year he was a finalist in the prestigious Glover Art Prize which is a prize for landscape painting. Over the years he has had numerous solo shows including his successful 2016 “Terra Nova” exhibition in which all his 12 paintings were sold. He is constantly interested in the sublime nature of wild untouched landscapes which feature prominently in his home state of Tasmania. He endeavours to find the emotional qualities in bleak landscapes as he feels delving deeper into a subject beyond just its surface are the hallmark of true art. All his work is started and completed entirely with painting knives and the oil paint he uses is mixed with resin filled beeswax to create a rich impasto surface. The nature of this painting style, he feels, beautifully mimics the scoured and ancient form of wild Tasmania. Despite that the works presented conceal a dark history in relation to England as over 100 years ago, the worst of England’s criminals were sent to this forbidden place to spend the rest of their lives in forced slavery. They were prisoned on a small island and forced to construct ships which were sent back to England. These ships were constructed from the prized endemic Huon Pine that was salvaged from the banks of the Gordon River, which How has included in these works. The irony of such a dark history juxtaposed with such a beautiful and unspoiled part of the world is hopefully encapsulated in these pieces.
Dagur Jónsson (from Iceland) always considered himself an artistic person and has always been involved in art in one way or another. Photographing is an exciting form of expression for him and loves capturing everyday moments with a moody feeling to it. For him the storytelling of a photo is very important and he tries to capture people’s emotions in his works. Landscapes with dramatic clouds and captivating sunlight’s are something that he specially looks for in his shots. For this exhibition he has chosen six photos to represent his style of work. In this collection my aim is to get the isolation and the beauty of loneliness you can experience here in Iceland. The land is pure and has a strong character with its dark mood and strong colours. Here he chose to highlight the colours: blue, red and green which he believes, they created drama and emotion. The colour blue represents winter while the red colour is strongly related to sunsets. The green means summer to him and brightness but also stands for northern lights. The colours of his life, you can say, winter, sunsets and northern lights. In this exhibition he has placed these colours together in a certain way to get an interesting balance between colour and scenery in the open roads and the lonely house you can so often see here in Iceland. His hope is that people see this theme, the beauty of isolation and the emotion of being alone in nature.
www.facebook.com/Dagurjonssonphotography/
Davide Palmieri (from Italy) was born in Rome in 1985. He started studying image as a video maker when was 19. He soon realised his passion for the "static image" and a few years later started studying photography in Madrid, Spain. In 2010, when he was back in Italy, he created his first works as a portraits photographer, but quickly concentrated his photographic research purely nature and rural landscapes.
He is a travel lover and is strongly enthusiastic about discovering new landscapes, especially if it comes to mountains. He tried and keeps trying to capture every natural landscape at its best without any photo editing manipulation. Palmieri aims for the viewer to experience the photograph exactly as it was experienced seen in person.
Katie Toombs (from USA) was born in the United States in a small town in South Carolina. She moved to Memphis, Tennessee at an early age and has lived there ever since. After graduating from The University of Memphis with a degree in home furnishings, she worked for several years in design and then eventually stumbled upon her career as an artist. Katie is self-taught and paints from her memories of growing up in the south. Her style is 'southern impressionism'...a term she has coined over the years. Inspiration is pulled from rows of cotton, cows grazing and the simplicity of trees watching over their fields. To Katie, the rural landscape is 'peace captured on canvas'. Her wood canvases are handmade by her husband, Jeremy. Each painting is a created by layering paint with a palette knife until the final look is achieved. Her process creates a rugged yet warm look that compliments any style and decor.
Katie now splits her time between painting, being a wife and caring for her 4 children.
Michael Clarke (from UK) was born in the UK but living and working around the world, Michael Clarke developed a strong feeling for culture, structure, and colour, committing this to canvas from 2002 onwards having retired to Southern France when he began painting again seriously. Leading to previous exhibitions in Bordeaux and Avignon and Beaume de Venise.
This current small collection exhibits contrasting styles of architecture and perspective but compared to earlier works they are less figurative thus allowing greater freedom of his favourite pallet knife. However he remains faithful to the use of oil over an acrylic backdrop.
Miguel Rubio (from Spain) was born on the year 1990 in Almeria, Spain. As well as Eduardo Galeano said: “The nature is not mute” It is full of whispers, songs and colours. My pictures are a way of expressing what I feel when I flow with her, that moment in which comes the calm, the colours become delicate and even the sunsets acquire its own sound, the nature talk to us every day but the society is losing the capacity to listen her, so I wish that through my images you can feel and hear what she tells me in each one of them.
Peter Brimelow (from UK) creates paintings that explore perceptions, memories and interactions with the changing urban environment, and how those experiences create a sense of place. Frith Street Soho is an exploration of movement and memory, contrasting the momentarily fixed fabric of the city with fluid and fragmented memories of the continuous movement of the people that create the unique atmosphere of Soho. The St Paul’s Cathedral paintings are part of an on going exploration of context, exploring perceptions of Sir Christopher Wren’s 17th Century architectural masterpiece in the context of the modern city. In these two paintings, the great dome is juxtaposed with the signature contemporary architecture of the Millennium Bridge designed by the architect Norman Foster in collaboration with the artist Anthony Caro, and the Barbican development designed by architects Chamberlin Powell and Bon. The Wandsworth Common paintings celebrate the contrasting landscapes of London’s parks and commons, peaceful green havens of nature that reflect the changing seasons in the context of the city.
Zak van Biljon (from Switzerland) creates photographic works with infrared colour. Chlorophyll reflecting in healthy plans are captured as vivid red and pink tones. Originally it was used by the military and for vegetation surveys.
The results are surprising and inspiring at the same time.
The Brick Lane Gallery - The Annexe, 93-95 Sclater Stree, E1 6HR
