‘LANDSCAPE NOW’
Jo Barrett, Mary Grant, Tom Hackney, Kathryn Hobden, Natasha Kissell, Ichirota Suzuki, Robert Wright
Exhibition Date: Tuesday 25/02/03 – 29/03/03
Contact: Zavier Ellis / Aniko Pall

CLAPHAM ART GALLERY is pleased to announce the official launch of its second gallery space, UNIT 02.

‘LANDSCAPE NOW’ is an overview of current artists working within the traditional genre of landscape painting. Each of these artists possesses a combination of exceptional painting skills and a contemporary, modern view of the world around us. We have chosen artists who use the landscape in an individual way whilst emphasizing what we expect from a landscape painting. The approaches to their work vary in either the manner in which they are painted or the subject matter depicted.

For example, Ichirota Suzuki creates partly painted views of park scenes. Pulling our focus into a single section of the canvas, Suzuki paints the one section in detailed full colour whilst leaving the surrounding areas in sketch form. Also concerned with public places of countryside, whether man-made or natural, is Kathryn Hobden. Hobden makes small-scale canvases depicting unpopulated camping sites and caravan parks. They are precise and optimistic, romantic and idyllic, highlighting the sunlit greenery surrounding the temporary rural getaway home of a tent or caravan. Natasha Kissell, likewise creates small scale canvases depicting beautiful ideals of snowed upon or rich green countryside.

Working in the photo-realist manner are Jo Barrett and Tom Hackney. Barrett’s paintings emphasise the beauty of the English countryside as she uses photographs taken from a moving car as her source matter, thus expressing the movement experienced and vistas witnessed when travelling. Hackney, on the other hand, creates impeccably precise paintings of scenes from Hollywood films. ‘American Legion Memorial Bridge, Amity Island’ is a rendering of a location used in Jaws that creates ‘a painted replica of a factual depiction of fictional landscape’. In this Hackney is referring to the many generations that could be encountered by rendering one landscape, thus taking the relationship between painting and photography one or two steps further. ‘American Legion…’ has travelled from real location through a filmed location to photograph (taken by Hackney himself) and then painting. To take this one step further Hackney has photographed his paintings and will be exhibiting the mounted prints framed in the same manner as the paintings themselves. These will be available as a limited edition.

Mary Grant also employs the photographic medium in the creation of her paintings, although she is concerned more with the painterly nature of the finished article. Creating small-scale works, Grant’s paintings are derived from snapshots taken whilst walking or driving. The result is a selection of rich and precious objects that represent the romanticism and fecundity of the countryside.

Finally, there is Robert Wright. Wright’s paintings are process-based renditions of imaginary landscapes. Using various materials, predominantly oil, ink and gold leaf, Wright creates pictorial space by working and reworking on the chance reactions of his materials. The result is a selection of atmospheric alpine-like landscapes that simultaneously recall the delicate detail of Japanese landscape prints and the ethereal primitiveness of Max Ernst.