Summer Exhibition 2009

50 yards from the Sea: Contemporary Art Summer Exhibition To Launch in Sandgate, Kent

The Cristus Gallery summer exhibition of contemporary art will open to the public from Thursday June 4th 2009. Deborah O’Grady, the show’s curator emphasised the feelgood, optimistic nature of the artworks.

“The thinking behind the summer exhibition is very straightforward” said O’Grady. “It’s about the quality of summer light, the freshness of summer breezes, the hope and energy that a great summer can represent. It celebrates a certain lightness of being, and breaking free from whichever new global crisis we are in the middle of when people come to visit the gallery!”

Cristus Gallery, situated just 50 yards from the seaside promenade in Sandgate, is the ideal place for a Summer Exhibition.

“The quality of the light here in Sandgate is remarkable” said Dan McCarthy, one of the exhibiting artists. “On a clear day you can see France across the channel, the light sparkles on the water, and the sea is a Caribbean turquoise. On a stormy day, the sky and English Channel seem to threaten to burst the sea defences. I spend a lot of my time trying to capture these mood changes, and the ancient, troublesome relationship that man has with the sea in this place”.

We wanted artists who can match their seriousness of purpose with beautiful, colourful works that are optimistic and full of light. Featured artworks include paintings by Sarah Stokes, Jessica Stride and Tracey-anne Pryke; Ceramics by Shaun Hall; digital art by Dan McCarthy.

Summer exhibition opening times are now: Fri & Sat 11 - 7.30, plus the first Sunday of every month. These will be extended during the peak season and will be announced here.

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Operation Z4: Staring at the whore-like visage of ‘creatives’

“…the signs and signals, the symbols, gestures and messages through which western society sustains, sells, identifies and yet obscures itself by painting or powdering over its raddled, whore-like visage…” Dennis Potter, The Times

We should not confound the BMW Z4 with the advertisement which attempts to sell it. The Z4 is, like all other cars, a dream, a symbol and a piece of rust in the making.

The advertisement on the other hand is the weaver of the dream, the maker of the symbol. The dream has been made for us by ad agency ‘creatives’, God help us all.

And the dream is this: someone is painting. I think he’s a famous artist. But he isn’t painting like any ordinary painter, standing up straight and respectable next to a canvas, carefully recording. No, he’s dripping and splashing the paint on. He’s slipping and sliding in it. He’s free, he’s wild, he’s orgasmic. The painting is him.

Then he’s a car, somehow. It’s this slow transformation across 60 or so years of painter into car that is mysterious, but this is all a dream, and things in dreams are inexplicable. And the transformation is as immediate as it is slow.

Does everyone understand this dream, does everyone live it? Or are dreams categorised into socio-economic groups? Do I need an art history degree to buy a Z4?

The alchemy that has taken place is not just present in our culture, it is our culture. It is the recycling and transformation of the profound into the shallow, the ineffable into the unspeakable, the sublime into the smug. But it’s ok, generally we barely notice this happening, and we care even less.

The action painter reveals himself directly. He does not need to think, he does not need to theorise or hold himself back. He expresses himself.

The Z4 expresses itself, turning this way and that, painting as it goes, wild, free and orgasmic. The colours are primary, bright and gaudy. There’s a radical spatter of red on the Z4’s haunches. There’s an economic crisis on: this is no time to paint with shit browns and puke greens and finally unrelieved blacks, no time to drink yourself to death, take a mistress, drive drunk and die in a car crash.

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Jessica Stride on why colour is her inspiration

As far back as I can remember, I’ve had a love of colour and when I paint, this is always my first inspiration. The images are unplanned but evolve through balance and instinct and using colours that lift my spirit with their beauty. This series of paintings was influenced by my frequent visits to Devon and reflects the vibrant blues of the coastal area. My process is one of making continual decisions, some conscious, some intuitive which affect the final outcome. I aim to produce imagery that is ambiguous, with many layers, that reveals itself slowly and gradually to the viewer.
[Jessica Stride, May 2009]

See Jessica’s striking abstract and figurative paintings, including ‘Headland’ featured above, at the Cristus Gallery Summer Exhibition, from June 4th 2009.

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The Alloway paintings - Loving the art of the near past

Not so long ago, artists lived at the margins. From shabby studios, they produced work that was difficult and abrasive - even brutal. They shunned popularity. For to be popular, one had to conform; and to conform, one had to submit to the general will.

Questions about the nature and purpose of art seldom arose, because art was what they did, come what may. While pandering to the tastes of the mass consumer was unthinkable.

The Alloway paintings, acquired and lovingly restored by Cristus, ‘Nude with Cat’ (1969) and ‘Nude Circle’ (1971), are outstanding examples of this oppositional art. Knocked up on hardboard and skinny laths - themselves an expression of the artist’s condition - they have endured the pangs and scorn of time. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that they have ever been cared for, or displayed with pride. Yet, with the gentle easing of a spirit rag, four decades of filth make way for truths. We are struck by the artist’s thoughts, his fears, his time, his rebellion, and his unquestionable skill; but we also sense that the paintings are as vital as the moment of their conception, and that they are imbued with an integrity that is beyond question.

While other art arrives and is checked for dinks, like any other merchandise, the Alloways interfuse with the viewer. Even during restoration, they were taken from the workroom, hung on walls and examined, discussed and re-examined by us Cristusians.

In these, and in the one other painting we have seen, Alloway describes an urban, modern or near-futuristic vision. Spectral figures appear, writhing in a ring of despair in ‘Circle’, while encased in specimen jars in ‘Cat’. The nude is most present on the crimson sofa, but she too is obscured by the cat and her lower limbs are fading into pools of liquid light. Outside the glare radiates into the spaces and the figures await their fate. The resignation, alienation and loss of faith runs parallel to the themes of absurdist drama. These were the concerns of the artists of the time, and that’s why Alloway painted them. He is part of a rich tradition of British post-war avant-garde artists who have hitherto been much-undervalued. But who is this Dennis Alloway, whom, we are told, attended the Royal Academy School then disappeared from view? Please let us know.

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Power and intensity - ‘Fire’ by Tracey-anne Pryke

Joining our list of new artists for the Cristus Summer Exhibition is Hythe-based Tracey-Anne Pryke. Though she paints mainly figurative works, this abstract departure is an example of her extensive range. It is not a painting to be avoided. There is a physical presence here, as if the surface of the painting itself has been set ablaze. Chromatic oils burn and shimmer over the blackness. The sense of immediacy reminds me of Willem de Kooning and the ‘Action painters’ of the 1950s and 60s, as though the painter has just stepped back from the canvas, bespattered and breathless - and the painting continues to burn. It is a great contrast to Tracey-Anne’s meticulous portraits and seascapes, though all possess the same rich pallette and expressionistic verve. See them for yourself, online and at the gallery from June 4th.
* Tracey-Anne has just agreed to demonstrate her skills by painting at the gallery. Date to be confirmed.

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