Waving in the Distance is an exhibition of 17 paintings from six artists, five based in London and one based in Manchester. The painters are all interested in remembered, fractured or imagined landscapes. The paintings include references to the Old Masters, Impressionism, fairy tales, gardens and sunlight. Among other things the artists’ methods include layering, painterly marks and suggestion. The exhibition has been curated by Julie Caves, who is also one of the painters in the show.
Artists:
Iain Andrews
Julie Caves
Diane Chappalley
Benjamin Deakin
Tom Farthing
Michele Fletcher
Dates:
19th March to
12th April 2020
Opening times:
Mon-Fri 4-10pm
Sat-Sun 12-10pm
Private View:
19th March
6-9:00
Artists in Conversation evening:
Five of the artists will be in conversation with artist and writer Matt Lippiatt.
8th April, 7-8:00pm
at Terrace Gallery
Location:
Terrace Gallery
The William The Fourth
816 High Road Leyton
London E10 7AE
In September 2019 Karl Bielik restarted Terrace Gallery in the back room of its new location, The William the Fourth Pub in Leyton. The primary focus of Terrace is painting.
Instagram:
@terrace_gallery
@julie_caves
@iainandrewsart
@dianechappalley
@benjamin_deakin
@t.farthing
@michele_fletcher
@matt_lippiatt
@williamthefourthpub
@karl_bielik
The image shown on the invitation is a detail of a painting by Tom Farthing.
Information about the artists:
Michele Fletcher
Considered abstracted ruminations on the cyclical changes in a garden, Michele’s work is informed by the natural world. Relying on visual memory, the paintings lie at a point where the abstract touches the familiar. She works in series, distilling form and colour into a rhythm that moves across the surface of the support. The work is shaped through choices dictated by ground, colour and mark making – the entire process building upon itself.
Originally from Canada, Michele Fletcher now lives and works in London. She studied at Goldsmiths (BA hons Fine Art and Critical Theory) and Chelsea, graduating with an MA in 2007.
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Tom Farthing
The paintings in the exhibition are all based on fleeting sensations of things observed, which have been reconstructed in paint. In the process of remembering the colours are shifted, details abbreviated into abstraction. The subjects are arrived at through a daily discipline of drawing and sketching, working with whatever is to hand until an image begins to suggest itself. Paintings are layered over each other until an image seems fixed on the canvas.
Tom Farthing lives and works in London. He completed his MA at Chelsea School of Art in 2013 and is currently part of the Turps Studio Programme. His work is involved with ideas of memory and place, and he uses landscapes and places he knows well as the starting point for many of his paintings.
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Diane Chappalley
Diane Chappalley paints scenes that are imagined, autobiographical and art historical. While inspired by the Swiss Alps where she grew up and the hidden green spaces of East London, the titles of the three paintings in this show all begin with ‘In Provence’ which refers to the French region where most influential modernist painters lived and worked. Painted on gingham linen this series evokes a rustic ‘fantasy’ of early 20th century Europe while reflecting her identity. Her paintings overlap places and time and propose a sensory experience instead of narratives.
Born in Switzerland, Diane Chappalley now lives and works in London. She graduated with an MA from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2017 and a BA from City and Guilds of London Art School in 2015.
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Benjamin Deakin
Arbiter is one of a long-running series of paintings of imaginary hybrid places which represent Benjamin Deakin’s ongoing interest in perception and memory. He is interested in the way in which the human mind seeks to rationalise new encounters by drawing from past experiences, including those from mediated sources (books, films, television), and projecting these onto the world in front of us. These often feel like you are looking at the world through a multi-layered and multi-sensory set of references and associations. The paintings are an attempt to represent the layered and fragmented nature of this experience. Arbiter combines fragments of volcanic landscapes from Iceland, Southern Spain and the Lake District with scenes from Tarkovsky’s film Stalker and Coctueu’s Orphée. The floating checkerboards are a recurring motif in this series which are a reference to Greek and Roman archeological sites as well as the dominance of single point perspective in western art.
Gazer and Surfacer are part of a series of works which reconsider the legacy of Romanticism on western art and mass culture. He is particularly interested in the ‘cult status’ conferred on certain types of landscape, particularly mountains and dramatic views. Gazer depicts the view from a Himalyan tea house that he visited in 2019 in the Everest region of Nepal. He felt that the very generic everyday interiors seemed to distance the astounding landscape beyond so that it became a picture rather than a view of the reality outside. The flattened perspective and handling in the foreground is a nod to late Impressionism. Surfacer is a reference to Casper David Friedrich’s “Das Eismeer”, a famous painting of a doomed arctic expedition. Benjamin found the fractured landscape on a visit to a former chemical plant during a residency in Portugal.
Benjamin Deakin lives and works in London. He studied at Kingston University and completed his MA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in 2006.
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Iain Andrews
Iain Andrews begins his paintings as a dialogue, both with a particular folk tale and also with an image from art history – often a painting by an Old Master that may then be used as a starting point from which to playfully but reverently deviate. He is interested in how stories are retold and re-imagined, and how the retelling alters and embellishes the original even as it seeks to render it vital and alive once again for a new audience. Along with this comes a question of how modern developments may be balanced by a dialogue with established traditions and past narratives, and yet not become nostalgic.
Iain Andrews lives and works in Manchester. His works are linked to the narratives and stories that he encounters during his work as an Art Psychotherapist with teenagers, many of whom have tales of neglect and abuse. These stories have very little trouble attaching themselves to the folk tales and faery stories that he has always been interested in, since the themes of the two - loss and abandonment; the violence of parental figures; and transformation and renewal - are so similar.
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Julie Caves
Julie Caves is interested in sunlight, creating painterly space, and perceptual ambiguity. When not painting sunshine or distance, she paints objects that are not easily identified. The ambiguity of seeing just a part of something or a group of unspecific objects means the viewer isn’t sure what it is they are seeing and their brain has to try to figure it out, drawing from all their past experiences of seeing things. One person will see folds of cloth across a body and another will see rolling hills in a landscape. Each viewer chooses the meaning and completes the painting with their mind.
Julie Caves lives and works in London and Margate. She has an MA from Camberwell College of Art, did two years on the Turps Studio Painting Programme and completed the Independent Curating course at Central St Martins.
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List of works:
Iain Andrews, The Loves of Lady Purple, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 50x40cm
Julie Caves, A Little Warmth, 2020, oil on canvas, 20x15cm
Benjamin Deakin, Gazer, 2020, oil on linen panel, 45x60cm
Julie Caves, In the Distance, 2020, oil on canvas, 20x15cm
Michele Fletcher, Bud (friendly pressure), 2018, oil on board, 20x15cm
Tom Farthing, Gazebo, 2019, oil on canvas, 40x30cm
Diane Chappalley, In Provence VII, 2020, oil on gingham, 35x45cm
Diane Chappalley, In Provence V, 2019, oil on gingham, 35x40cm
Diane Chappalley, In Provence VI, 2020, oil on gingham, 35x45cm
Michele Fletcher, East (a turning), 2017, oil on board, 70 x 80 cm
Benjamin Deakin, Arbiter, 2020, oil on linen panel, 45x60cm
Tom Farthing, Aylesbury Estate (Puddle), 2019, oil on canvas, 25x30cm
Julie Caves, Luxurious Scent, 2020, oil on canvas, 70x60cm
Iain Andrews, The Last Show, 2013, acrylic on canvas, 20x15cm
Tom Farthing, By the River (Evening), 2019, oil on canvas, 30x40cm
Iain Andrews, Buen Provecho, 2018, acrylic and oil on canvas, 60x50cm
Benjamin Deakin, Surfacer, 2020, oil on canvas, 60x75cm