HG Wells Festival - Griffin’s Escape by Dee Taylor

To mark the upcoming HG Wells Festival, Dee Taylor has created “Griffin’s Escape”. According to Dee, it is an image that refers to a take on two of Wells’ creations - The War of the Worlds and The Invisible Man.

“…A chaotic scenario of the inexorable, destructive march of the tripodic extra-terrestrials, and a single clue that Griffin, the Invisible Man, has been present. His abandoned sun-glasses lay broken, reflecting his fleeing figure”.

Cristus Gallery will be exhibiting Wells related pieces by Dee Taylor, Neil Jones, Jane Kelly and Parallax from 4th - 20th September.

See more Dee Taylor paintings…

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A special weekend for lovers of contemporary art

Bank Holiday Weekend Specials at Cristus

To mark the final weekend of the summer exhibition Cristus are discounting prices by 20% this weekend (does not include ceramics) so that we can make way for our exciting new season of exhibitions.

In addition, we have some very special offers which are open only to our Newsletter readers. To take advantage, sign up for our newsletter here and we will send you a coupon code. Then drop into the Gallery on Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday (28th - 31st August 2009) and simply tell us your coupon code to qualify for these offers…

1.Buy any painting, ceramics, prints or photographs with a retail value of £400 or more and choose from one of two free gifts

• EITHER a) any unframed print currently on display in the gallery, including signed limited editions!
• OR b) Two packs of high quality art reproduction greeting cards (5 cards to a pack). Normally the two packs would retail at £30.

PLUS

2. Receive a massive 20% discount on future opening night Private View purchases (as a Newsletter subscriber you will automatically be invited to all future Private Views)

PLUS

3. Collectors Special: we would like to keep our artist’s work together in single collections as far as possible. We want to encourage this with the following offer: buy two works by a single artist and receive a third at a 50% discount - this weekend only! This offer applies to the lowest priced work of the three pieces. Paintings, photographs and prints only - does not apply to ceramics.

More importantly… here is a selection of some of the beautiful art available this weekend…

 

Plus lots more art by many more artists… we look forward to seeing you at the weekend - have a great Bank Holiday.
Tel: 01303 223005
Mob: 0759 33 77 499

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Dee Taylor to exhibit at Cristus / HG Wells Festival

Dee Taylor will exhibit a new painting to mark the HG Wells Festival at Cristus Gallery, starting on Friday 4th September 2009. Dee’s painting will be joined by specially commissioned works by Jane Kelly and Neil Jones. Dee is pictured here with two of his recent works which feature vast dystopic landscapes of the near future.

See more Dee Taylor paintings…

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HG Wells Festival and Jane Kelly Dates announced

Jane Kelly’s retrospective at Cristus Gallery will begin with a Private Viewing on Friday 25th September, 2009. The exhibition covers Jane’s work from 2004 to the present and includes some of her stunning new paintings on Christian themes.  Please email us for an invitation to the Private View.

 

The Gallery is also taking part in the local HG Wells Festival. Although the literary festival at the Grand Hotel on the Leas takes place on the weekend of 19th and 20th September, we are starting early - from Friday, 4th September until 21st September, 2009. We will be showing specially commissioned works from Neil Jones, Dee Taylor and Jane Kelly.

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Jane Kelly - Britain’s most controversial artist?

Britains Most Controversial Artist?
Jane Kelly - 2004 -2009: A Retrospective
Hosted by Cristus Gallery
Friday 25th September 2009 - 18th October 2009

In 2004 Jane Kelly painted a picture of Myra Hindley. The painting lost Jane her job and caused her to embark on a search for truth and authenticity in art which continues until this day. Jane confronts us with murderers, dictators, religious figures, celebrities. She asks us to consider these people as human beings, not monsters or saints. And yet her controversial subject matter maintains and extends the great traditions of European painting.

“In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves”
Abraham J. Heschel, Philosopher, 1907-1972

For an Invitation to the opening night Private View sign up for our newsletter.

See more Jane Kelly Paintings

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Victoria Fontaine-Wolf and the art of portrait painting

Regular visitors of this website will recall how, back in April, I enthused about Victoria Fontaine-Wolf’s portrait ‘Sarah Reading’. Then, on a magical sunny morning at The Grand Hotel, Folkestone, I was captivated by her ‘painterly skill and graceful composition’; and now I return, to see a solo exhibition that spans four decades of sublime portrait painting.
Most of the paintings are of beautiful young women from good families, soft and composed, but there are also a number of portraits from Victoria’s travels. The unity of the show, however, comes from the calm dignity of the sitters. Whether they be Samburu tribespeople or London sophisticates, they are all treated with the same generous attention of the artist, who is keen to show their essential characters. And they are at ease because they know that they will be represented positively and in a manner in which they will always be proud.
There are drawings, watercolours, oils and pastels on display, with the latter being the most accomplished. As Victoria explains, the layering of pastel creates the play of light with pigment that gives the work its verisimilitude. This technique is far removed from the smudging that’s associated with much pastel work; it is light and crisp and sure.

Taking pride of place is the huge painting of Victoria’s daughter, Rebecca, herself an accomplished artist (see www.rebeccafontaine-wolf.com). It is fitting to see this in the Grand, though it would not be out of place above the drawing-room mantle in du Maurier’s eponymous novel. The classic pose and the exuburance of the satin against the coarse raw canvas, are typical of Victoria’s style.
Having Victoria as guide to her work was also revealing. She has painted all over the world, from the rich and famous to the interesting model or passer-by, but she is always playful and modest about her talents.

Now, here at Cristus, it is the turn of the Townsend children, Gabriel and Imogen, to be immortalised in pastel. They sit, still and happy, while Victoria keeps them alert and chatting. The result is that same blend of realism and idealised representation that I saw in ‘Sarah Reading’. The painting is of the children at their very very best, yet expressing an intimate sense of their characters. Wonderful.

Cristus are delighted to announce that Victoria Fontaine-Wolf is available for commissions. Please contact the gallery.

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Enchantment in pictorial form - The pastel landscapes of Philip Lee

Joining us for the Cristus Summer Exhibition and the following H G Wells Festival Exhibition is Philip Lee, an experienced professional artist who has worked in many contrasting styles and media. The paintings on display at Cristus are in his preferred medium of pastel, which enable him to ‘capture’ the impression of a scene with fidelity and speed. As he says…

‘The pastel landscapes are a celebration of the living, changing natural world. I want to share with others the same sense of delight that I experience when looking at the world around me. I try to achieve this by giving my subjects a rich surface texture, freely painted, yet true to nature. The themes I use, like water, trees or rocks enable me to explore light and pictorial space. The tapestry of mark making that ensues, and the illusion of realism that I create, are like the world around us - a constantly changing blend of order and chaos.’

Philip began his art education at the Folkestone School of Art, before going on to Christchurch College, Canterbury, and he has great affection for Sandgate. He has also lived and worked in many countries throughout Europe, with his first one-man show being held at Piazza Santa Restituta, Ischia, Italy, followed by regular exhibitions over the last four decades. Needless to say, we are very pleased to have Philip exhibit, and look forward to building our relationship over the coming years.

Philip’s current exhibition can be seen at www.philipart.com/cristus%20gallery.html

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Dreaming of Olympia - 5 Thomas Ostenberg bronzes at the Mint Leaf

It’s refreshing to see work that doesn’t strain for effect, is straightforward, confident and comfortable in its own skin. Ostenberg’s bronzes on show at the Mint Leaf restaurant  (Lothbury, City of London) are about joy, energy and love of life. There is humour in these pieces, and a kind of circus-like exuberance.

Two of the pieces - “Wing and a Prayer” and “Leap of Faith” - depict flying gymnastic figures suspended in a circle of bronze. What came to mind was a Classical Indian, rather than a Greek or Olympian association: the Mahabharata… “The wheel of life moves on. It has the understanding for its strength; the mind for the pole (on which it rests); the group of senses for its bonds, the five great elements for its nave, and home for its circumference”.

Perhaps ’the wheel of life’ explains why these works sit so beautifully in the surroundings of the Mint Leaf, an upmarket, funky Indian restaurant. The Ostenberg bronzes enhance the restaurant no end, and if the proprietors have any sense, they will make sure they hold on to them permanently. 

The exhibition is brought to the Mint Leaf by Fraser Kee Scott and A GALLERY, where you can find out more about the exhibition and Ostenberg’s pieces.

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‘Acceptance’ by Jessica Stride

“Acceptance” by Jessica Stride showing her typical mastery of colour. Acrylic on canvas. Presentation is on an unframed deep box canvas. More details.

Buy an open edition print here.

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Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2009

You sir! Pass my monacle.

To assert that the Royal Academy’s long standing tradition of open submission to its Summer Exhibition is a form of democracy, as the great and good would have us believe in the meeja this week, is to adopt an essentially self-contradictory position. There’s a paradox in operation.

I say so because the actual tradition of the Academy is one of conservatism, elitism, royal and aristocratic patronage, closed shops, and negative discrimination at every possible level. It has played its part in helping to build the reputation of English art as the poor man of Europe, dragging its pallid shape along in the wake of the adventurous and spunky Europeans (and Americans in the precociously recent 20th Century). Picasso, Miro, Pollock, Richter? What, when we have the St Ives school?

At this year’s exhibition, as in the past, the jury’s chosen water colourists and acrylicists rub shoulders with established artists. What’s different is that this time around, apparently it’s funky. Flirting dangerously with the 21st Century, the Academy has drafted in Emin and Hirst, like Royalty at a cup final. Britain has globally recognised stars of the art world, and here they are. We only sing when we’re winning.

This is a good mix. It is an excellent chance to compare the output of the great engine room of English artistic output, the reality of what art is for most artists (i.e. rendering approximations of observed phenomena with paint, charcoal etc), with the work of the great conceptualists of our time. Who will come off best? What will connect, emotionally or intellectually? And what will have lasting quality?

We find ourselves at a fascinating juncture in art history, entangled as never before in the reality of the market place. It’s an entertaining scramble for the Art Quid, but let’s not pretend that democracy has anything to do with it.

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2009 continues until 16th August.

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