Anna Phelps ~ ‘painting from memory and imagination’
November 10, 2009 by Quigley · Leave a Comment
Cristus gallery is very pleased to welcome Anna Phelps to its winter exhibition. After two exhibitions of ideas’ paintings, we were looking for work that could complement in terms of technique and richness of palette, and we were also keen to leave the known world and all its troubles. Anna’s ‘Bacchus’, with its dark crimson, purple and golden hues, seemed the perfect painting to build the exhibition around. Like all of her work, it is highly stylised, theatrical and captivating.
The figures are calm and still but distracted, staring beyond the viewer as if frozen in a moment. It is as though they have stepped forward from their reality, to be painted. They comply.
Anna’s statement on her website http://www.annaphelps.co.uk explains how she arrived at such a distinctive style, by rejecting the trends of art teaching and production, in order to find a method of painting that comes naturally from within. The result is personal and spare, but never ‘primitive’, as the attention to detail is truly breathtaking. Come and see for yourself, at the winter exhibition.
Sphere: Related ContentVictoria Fontaine-Wolf ~ ‘ideal beauty’
November 10, 2009 by Quigley · Leave a Comment
Victoria, good friend of Cristus, has twice been reviewed on this site and has for some time been available for portrait commissions at the gallery. This is, however, the first time that we have tempted her to exhibit, with two paintings in the winter exhibition. Both feature contemporary pre-Raphaelite subjects of exquisite charm and beauty. I say contemporary, because they are not the lost or fallen mid-Victorian females of the PRB; rather, in their contentment and demeanour, they are more representative of our times. Isabella (and the pot of basil), featured above, even wears Victoria’s own favourite dress, though painted in a style that would no doubt find Ruskin’s approval.
Sumptuous in colour and detail, elaborately framed, they look magnificent!
Philip Lee’s tempestuous ‘Deluge’ paintings
November 10, 2009 by Quigley · Leave a Comment
Two large and dramatic canvases from Philip Lee form part of the Cristus winter exhibition. They come from the artist’s surrealist period, and have been carefully restored and framed at the gallery. Here’s what Philip has to say about his work:
‘The circular theme at the centre was the starting point of Deluge. The monalith and the pyramid have become more substantial, the monalith falling and the pyramid as if seen through broken glass. The bone-like structure in Subterranean has become a skeletal building or ship, and behind and through everything comes the deluge - of water or snow? Turner’s ‘Hannibal crossing the Alps has had an influence here. As with the whole series, Deluge is designed to be ambiguous; understanding the picture is intended to be as fluid as the picture is painted, and personal to the viewer’.
Deluge 2 is a development of the bottom left corner of Deluge. ‘The pyramid and shiplike structures have been combined in the building/ship structure on the left, while the monalith has been somewhat eroded. To its right a cascade of treasure pours from the destruction caused by the deluge of water’.
A time to reflect ~ Cristus winter exhibition - starts 30th October
November 9, 2009 by Quigley · Leave a Comment
Please call the gallery for opening times, or to arrange a special appointment (01303 223005 or 07759 33 77 499)
Deep rich colours feature in our winter exhibition, with raku ceramics from Shaun Hall, digital art by Dan McCarthy and paintings by Anna Phelps (featured above), Philip Lee, Tracey-Anne Pryke, Saffron Eve, Dee Taylor, Sarah Stokes, Marjorie Wilson and Victoria Fontaine-Wolf.
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