London Art Fair 2021

Eileen has recently returned to drawing from life in her London studio, inviting friends and students from her time at the Royal Academy Schools. These portraits strike an empathetic tone with the relaxed and intimate distance created between artist and model(s), their body language at ease with love and contemplation. The figure is central to Cooper’s imagery, her compositions underpinned by the complex question of human relationships. Cooper’s strong drawing with fluid simplified lines and colourful compositions make her work immediately recognisable.

 

Eileen Cooper will be part of a group exhibition ‘ An Intimate Distance’ with Craigie Aitchison RA, Natasha Michaels and Jo Taylor at Rabley Gallery in February 21.

LISTEN – Katherine Jones introduces her new watercolours and prints reading from her studio notes.

The origins of Natasha Michaels’ recent mono-prints lie in historical portraits from the renaissance to the 19th century. Exploring challenging and at times up-ending traditional conventions and genres, Michaels’ work is an investigation of her own ambivalence towards the originals. At once subverting and celebrating, she uses her own expressive language to recast and direct the sitters, reimagining them as fictional characters.

Using only hand tools Peter Randall Page has carved small sculptures with a continuous lines, dividing the surface of a stone into ‘territories’.

“The lines appear to bisect their plane, but not as a scalpel does: they partition it with no pretense at economy. They meander like rivers carving up the landscape – you’re always on one side or the other, but stick a pin, blindfold, into the map and there’s no telling which side it will be” Philip Ball, Scientist and writer.

Randall-Pages sculpture and drawings have always been informed and inspired by the study of natural phenomena and its subjective impact on our emotions. In recent years his work has become increasingly concerned with the underlying principles determining growth and the forms it produces. In his words “geometry is the theme on which nature plays her infinite variations, and can be seen as a kind of pattern book on which the most complex and sophisticated structures are based.”

Untitled 2020-07 is the first of a new series of work on paper. Salter layers of ink and gouache which ‘resisted’ to cover/uncover. The materials have a subtle reticulation, giving depth and texture to the surface of the work.

In her works on paper Salter draws on the raw materials of paper and wood blocks, often transferring marks from wood to paper. They are cut, folded and traced to create visual depth of surface.

Rebecca Salter is attracted to the visual sophistication of Japanese prints; the flat colour, the bold, cropped compositions and, above all, the fluidity of the lines are all evident influences on her minimal, abstract works on paper, print and painting.

Here we encounter Stibbon’s printmaking made over a period of 22 years from 1998 and 2020. El Chorro,1998 a rare early woodcut, hand printed onto Japanese paper. When Stibbon was faced with this 300m gorge in Andalucia, Spain, she set about creating a monumental work that towers over the viewer. The light and detail in this print are mesmerising. Emma Stibbon works solely on paper, in drawing and printmaking. She embraces the paper’s fragility and strength as a metaphor for our vulnerable world.

The drawings and etchings by Ian Chamberlain are the culmination of a response to The Atlantic Wall.  The Atlantic wall is a WWII German defence system built along the west coast of Europe. These brutalist forms are being interpreted as architectural metaphors concerning boundaries and borders.

The exhibition Ian Chamberlain, Shifting Sand, North Atlantic Wall continues in the gallery throughout January 2021. More works are available by this artist