Leamington Spa

Has LSA at last come of age? It now has its own gallery called Gallery 150, located in the ‘Old Library’ Avenue Road, Royal Leamington Spa, near to its desired goal of managing the adjacent ‘Old Art Gallery’. The latter was purpose designed and is one of the few surviving examples of an Art Deco building. Its exterior has three niches which on one stands a young female nude figure representing Painting, as signified by the attribute of a palette, positioned behind her. It is carved out of sandstone and is in good condition, commissioned from a well known sculptor of that period, called Bloye. She has close affinities with the sixth-century BC Archaic Greek goddess, and strangely enough when placed there in 1929, was thought to symbolise the spirit of modern art! The other two niches for Sculpture and Architecture were never filled, owing to lack of money.

The people of Leamington Spa raised money through public subscription for The Old Art gallery to be built and were justly proud of it. So it is a gallery, paid for by the people, for the people to show original works of art bought and donated by them. All artists who have exhibited there over the years consider it to be a very fine and generous exhibition space. One day it is hoped LSA will be responsible for turning it back into a gallery for the artists of Warwickshire to exhibit their work.

But enough of future dreams, let us return to the glorious present and consider the first exhibition of Gallery 150, called 'Renewal'. It consists of the work of those who transformed a semi-derelict area in the Old Library, to a spanking, handsome exhibition space. No one can say artists can't do hard labour, when it is demanded of them, and their response has been a miracle. It is by its nature a varied show consisting of powerfully motivated, ambitious artists with those whom, because of circumstances, are unable to do as much as they would like. In the later case, the hope is for LSA to provide studios for artists in the upper regions of the building. Here again help will be called for and clearly those doing so will be favoured choices when studios are eventually allocated. In the meantime Gallery 150 is available to all artists but especially LSA members.

 ‘ Renewal ‘ is by definition an assortment of artists who do not have much in common, except an eagerness to exhibit their work for the world to see, to be damned or extolled, depending on the viewer’s reaction. The order of magnitude in this respect is considerable with 250 people present at the Private View, and scores of other visitors in the following days while the exhibition was open. It is with this thought in mind that rather than give a general overview I have attempted to comment on ALL the artists who exhibited.

 We have Libby January's work which has diversity and a sure knowing hand built into the imagery, where variety and surprise greet our eyes. It is not the usual January but one offering a greater menu with a certain symbolic significance. In the next exhibition at Gallery 150, which she will share with George Taylor we shall be able to see more fully the range of her work. Andrew Christopher's 'In my Time' brings a dark reflective painting to bear on our psyche, with a figure under a tree, conveying tenderness, even loss. Katharine Barker’s ‘Evolve’ establishes a lighter mood, where a canvas will not do as it is told, even before it is fixed to its stretcher. It has a life of its own, and forgetting deck chairs and winds, conceptually challenges the painting or the art work to recognise it is an artefact first. This is an amusing, clever and desirable piece for the sophisticated collector. She has other equally clever work on show, and one ‘The Grid’, a print, tackles the problem of control. A simulated metal mesh in the form of a grid is superimposed on what appears to be part of a canvas so the two planes float in front of the viewer. As in the previous work the question of organisation seems to be at the forefront of the thinking and the refined aesthetic creates a necessary tension. How ideas travel through the ether and can be transmuted, for in Goddard’s work the metal grid is actually part of the structure, and evocative of another dimension related to control.

Robert Lavers paintings remind one of the memory of holidays in foreign places which somehow we have seen before in brochures. They are calm and reassuring, accomplished and peaceful, soothing and one associates them with enjoyable, sun-filled moments, wine full as one reflects that sense of enjoyment from a non-demanding, secure passage of time in a place fleetingly familiar but different. They make no demands but reassure with light and colour, and in one offer the glimpse of romance. Such placidity requires considerable know-how and skill, and even the deck chairs and the mechanics looking at a car, have this completeness. Jan Rawnsley has excelled in one mad moment, so that water and sand and sea become entwined in a vast complex thrill of swirling, gestural movements of paint with daring colour notations. This is the antithesis of the previous works by Lavers for life becomes a daring moment lost on sand dunes, suffused by thick luxurious paint, or we are overwhelmed by those well trodden wave soaked sands at her beloved Whitby. I suspect these are part of a series where painterly madness took over. Jo Sutton’s work ‘Why are You Smiling?’ is quite different, seeped in nostalgia, consisting of words printed on paper, and framed, with an overarching shadow, watching the words. The question itself suggests maybe you shouldn’t, as you see your life flashing before you and know how you have been constrained, restricted and controlled, by false promises and false gods, deceived and tricked, and how foolish you are. It is a poetic accusation of how innocence should not be allowed to be crushed and how to be worldly and not allow one to be taken advantage of, and implies it is the only way to survive. This work is a warning, so take heed; it is serious and meaningful, and haunting. Then there is Ann Power teasing us with ‘Refuge’ and ‘The Big Draw’, the latter charcoal and graphite providing a conglomeration of weird plant like forms, bird cages, snakes, and seeds – the sheer diversity leads to a mystery, to life itself, untidy, dishelved or who knows what, you get your gene pool and you take your chances?

 David Lewis is a visual roaming reporter who does not take the easy way out of ‘click’ and there you have it. No, he paints the beautiful buildings which make up Leamington Spa, whether it be a telescopic views of the Town Hall and brightens the bricks with redness, complete with all the strange details, or renders the rose window of  ‘All Saints’, with dark tonalities of a drama, as if it could be doomed, or the façade of ‘Victoria Terraces’ with an impish background, as if such visualisations weren’t enough, and he wants to pronounce I am really a proper artist, not simply a recorder. And who could doubt it? How different from Jane Williams’s intimate, interior rendering of musical groups, for ever delightful, purposeful, powerful and dramatic. How best to describe the sound of music and the protagonists who make it? Identify the instruments to the equilivances of light, space and colour and the music seemingly speaks for itself.

Fran Booth’s work has a strong presence in spite it being a garment, hanging innocuously on a canvas. Yet, these two painted coats on separate canvases magically bring out the qualities of leather and denim. They are ‘real’ because of their illusionist skill. The drama she sets up of the ordinary, makes the mundane reach beyond normality. The luminosity of the paint has a poetic quality. Portraits of Cholem and Lithma, two survivors of the Nazi regime from Lithuania, are depicted in pencil by Lynsey Cleaver (she of Chang fame) in a very undramatic way. They seem so ordinary but you cannot look on these faces without reverence, the pain is drawn into the faces, as you know from history what has been experienced by them. Their faces are icons, which carry with them the suffering they and so, so many, many more, nobly endured. It is a timely reminder.

‘La Femmes au Plumes’ has a distinctive look of style, and carries with it, the air of Paris, from which Dominica Vaughan has recently returned. The high price asked fades into total insignificance when one learns of the £65 million pounds paid at auction, for the sculpture of an emaciated, striding Giacometti figure. Such price pushes us all into the rarefied, unreal world of the super-rich, and in this case where ‘less is more’, for in terms of thinness this figure outranks supermodels! This was one signal for Francis Bacon to distort and smear the distorted fragments of figures across canvases for decades, to revolt and horrify us and gain the highest esteem for a vision of life itself, as will be seen in the Compton Verney exhibition in April. No, Vaughan’s work has a tenderness brought home by the inclination of the head, the lowered eyes, crowned by luxurious hair which flows into her apparel. The marble flesh set in this context brings home the interior monologue of the figure, the enigma of class, the anxiety, and the price is that redeeming factor. Even with the cart rolling across the cobbles to the guillotine, one feels she will be saved, for the price elevates it from the norm and makes it precious. This work has been marked not only by brushes but by hand in an attempt to convey the magic and allure of the femme fatale, at her expensive peak with all her mystery intact. Tim Taylor’s formal piece goes beyond illustration as an Aztec. At the same time a mechanistic figure seems to power its way through a wall, while at the same time carries its pyramid of culture with it. Like a jigsaw we are left with the pieces and the problem of how to put it together again. This is a clever, adroit, confrontational piece which encapsulates an aspect of the present, while at the same time it brings the destruction of a past civilisation to bear on our consciousness.

 Gerry Smith’s four gigantic strips evoking the power of Monet’s Water lilies take up one whole wall. It sets the tone with a larger than life remit. The work recalls Monet’s fascination with reflections and the dilemma as to what constituted the real world in the garden at Giverney. They are panoramic, digital photographic shaped Ciclee prints, where much of the art lies in the techniques of catching the colour, the space, the luminosity, so successfully. They are virtually as huge as the originals and Gerry has managed to convey some of that energy, so that in the worst winter for thirty years, we are comforted by the expansive, gorgeous expression of colour, light and reflection. It is all encompassing and delightful and a reminder of what genius can do to us all. The watercolours of Clematis which Mo Finnesy, so different in scale, presented have an honesty with one simply set against a well painted and observed brick wall. It is as if the vulnerable is exposed to be examined. It raises the question of the different response one has to the organic as against the inorganic, nature against man, teased out with an obessional focus, resulting in a statement about beauty and pathos of the underdog. Peter Lovelock has provided us with twigs from trees, silhouetted so they seem to twitter on a white ground against a white sky. But these are real trees, in so far they have not been touched by human hands, no ink on surfaces but the clever manipulation of an artist who knows his photography and lenses, and uses all his knowledge, to provide a clear comment about what can be seen, if you really look. These images are a refreshing clearance of the retina and dramatic with it. Another photographic venture comes from Dorothy Biddle, a virtual polymath, who grapples with all media and ideas as in ‘Childhood Memories: Kiss and Tell’ where hard edged tents innocently hide all things that happened inside, that shall be invisible and nameless, the outer shell of lived experience and all that which is conveyed. Linda/Emmanuel Henry’s ‘  676 Bottle Tops’ brings us down to earth with a thud. Here is lived life with the subtle signs of its occurrence displayed as a mesh, like a piece of mediaeval armour. The protection of alcohol signals false bravery, of knives and blood, to whimpering flesh, of torn stockings on a city pavement. It tells a story of money spent, fun had and cheap at the price. ‘El Dorado’ adjacent, with its assured mark making and colour sophistication, of a born artist, indicates too the flimsy hopes of the lottery masses, such as myself, glowing with hope, colour and paint, which streaks down after the event. It has all the immediacy of a fading world where nothing is real, where mark making is the only reality. Chris Jones’s minimal statement has all the outrage and surprise when an artist challenges the intellectual discourse of conceptualism with a comb, cotton and a handkerchief presented with a formal subtly. What then of glamour, of jazzy needs, of high jinks when you have reality straight up and in your face. Simplicity, humility are the tokens of life, get real man, life’s not a bed of roses, all you need is a comb for the hair of a dead man, some cotton as a shroud, and a handkerchief to mop up the tears. This work is symbolic of the glamour of death, enjoy the stillness, for one day these items will be yours, too?

 Corinna Spencer has etched four images: small, delicate and intense. You might need a magnifying glass or at least your glasses to see the quality and skill of the work. ‘Homage to Klee’ is a beauty as it distils a power of evocation by minimal means. The distillation and feeling of thought is captured in ‘Glytal’ with a fine colour differentiation and arabesques. These etchings stop you in your tracks, for ‘small is beautiful’, and concentration is a legacy we need to use as we gaze at the miniscule and wonder. Linda Redpath’s  ‘Colour of Venice’ shows the artist likes the open and the expansive. No shutting her into small spaces as she captures the blood red of a Venetian sunset, reducing the city to an outline set against the sky and the sea. She truly underlines the notion that Venice is - the greatest conceptual artwork ever – a city of enormous architectural beauty – built on water! Her ‘Norfolk Coast’ shows her love of the open, the vapid, the ever moving, never ceasing sand and spray with expanses which go beyond the mind. Jenny Burns in ‘Garden View’ makes a different essay, here is closure with never to be articulated, never named flowers, the dream like impression of a bewitching garden, complete with pool and springboard, from which to dive into enchantment. It is a blissful dream world but a horticulturalist’s nightmare as the indecipherable, unnameable plants dissolve into shrouds of melting paint and colour. Her ‘Whitefriars Street’ is an intriguing, ghostly like image where ruination of age seems to have descended bringing with it sadness. Julia Prior has shown her amazing work again, where her sharp eye turns withered wood into live animals and in this case ‘Skimmer’ and ‘Diver’ carry with them all the energy of their titles. She is faultless in her perceptions and her vision. Tony Prior has brought his blues to bear on water in an ocean, which swirls and froths in ‘Navigate’, and superimposed a linear structure, which immediately conveys the sense of search and rescue, in the looking for that tiny raft or boat or person lost somewhere in that vast array of water, with which he so cleverly visualises and identifies. There is no sense of panic here but a statement of intent based on knowledge. Here is someone who knows his seas.

 Peter Lewis with his ornamental and elaborate emblematic reliefs, consisting of face masks with heavily stylised features, fulfil the ritualistic character of ‘Medusa Acquitted’ and are immediately arresting. They have a presence and ask of you, do you understand the nature of ceremony, if not, look and learn, and wonder. Fiona Metcalfe’s ‘Montague Series’ consist of mixed media and are miniscule, with a needle and thread, which evoke a miniature workroom with a touch of an early Picasso structure. It is tender and fragile and sweet. Rosemary Keep’s painting on aluminium shows the hand of a master, with an amazing touch, as huge waves seem on the point of literally dispensing their water right in front of you. The control is worthy of a Japanese artist, who as she can, provide you with a world view in a magnificent colour laden image of power with petrified water that may drown us all one day. Val Just ‘Dunes at Ynasias’ has that sort of location which you find stumbling on the edge of a sea, with rolling hillocks, luxury growth and blue mountains beyond. You know you have been there but when and why are questions you can’t answer, for the painting seems to have always been there waiting for you to arrive. It has the endeavour which so many of these artists have given and for one fleeting month their true vocation has been visible in a public place.

So many of these works will return to the loneliness of the studio with their creators, when at the same time miles of white walls in public buildings scream for their life, when will justice prevail?
Dave Phillips