Chris Rivers: Odyssey

 

Angels are Astronauts - Saturn (detail)

 

 

 

Whilst in Fitzrovia I happened across Pontone Gallery and was very impressed by the paintings of Chris Rivers. This body of work references themes of space travel and the artists' vision of the atmospheres and presumed gases and toxic clouds enveloping the different planets inhabiting our solar system. The first thing that leaps out at you are the vibrant colour harmonies Rivers has employed to evoke the misty nebulae and cosmic dust of the planets. There are sulphurous yellows and acidic greens contrasted against vortices of hot pinks and flashes of scarlet. The next element to catch the eye is the artists impressive gestural, bravura brushwork which deliberately verges on the abstract. The gallery's press release of the exhibition mentions the influence of Monet's Waterlily series of paintings which is very evident, but I also detected a possible connection to the blowsy romantic excesses of French Rococo paintings by the likes of François Boucher (1703–1770) and Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806) in Rivers treatment of the colouring of the skies and the depictions of roses and foliage suspended in the firmaments of these worlds. Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey is also a deliberate influence here as we observe lone spacemen in each painting cut off off from all other human contact in cold, alien spacescapes. There was something oddly affecting about the plight of these tiny spacemen on their personal odyssey's hurtling alone through the immense vastness of space. I felt this was quite a timely exhibition and body of work given the recent launch into space of the James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope is expected to reach a distance of of approximately 664,000 miles from Earth and use its gold-coated mirrors to look back through time to see the embers of the stars that formed after the Big Bang leading to the birth of the universe.

 

 

 

Abstract Scene in a Far Away Place (diptych)

 

Abstract Scene in a Far Away Place (detail

 

Installation view

 

Angels are Astronauts - Pluto

 

Angels are Astronauts - Pluto (detail)

Angels are Astronauts - Saturn

 

Angels are Astronauts - Saturn (detail)

 

Angels are Astronauts - Saturn (detail)

 

Angels are Astronauts - Mercury

 

Angels are Astronauts - Mercury (detail)

 

Angels are Astronauts - Mercury (detail)

 

Angels are Astronauts - Uranus

 

Angels are Astronauts - Uranus (detail)

 

Angels are Astronauts - Jupiter (detail)

 

Angels are Astronauts - Jupiter

 

Angels are Astronauts - Earth

 

Angels are Astronauts - Earth (detail)

Angels are Astronauts - Venus

 

Angels are Astronauts - Venus (detail)

 

Installation view

 

Adam and Eve are Astronauts who fell from Outer Space 2

 

Adam and Eve are Astronauts who fell from Outer Space 2, (detail)

This Was Once a Pretty Landscape 2

 

This Was Once a Pretty Landscape 2, (detail)

Sleeping Fairies and Savage Unicorns 2

 

Sleeping Fairies and Savage Unicorns 2, (detail)

 

Headspace 2

 

Sleeping Fairies and Savage Unicorns I

 

Sleeping Fairies and Savage Unicorns I (detail)

Sleeping Fairies and Savage Unicorns I (detail)

Fading Sunflowers and the Bright Stars

Chris Rivers: Odyssey

until 30th January

Pontone Gallery

74 Newman Street

London

W1

 

Leigh Bowery ~ Tell Them I've Gone to Papua New Guinea

 

Leigh Bowery

 

 

"Dress as though your life depends on it or don't bother." - Leigh Bowery 

 

 

It was a real thrill to visit this small exhibition celebrating the creative looks of Leigh Bowery. The beautifully decorative interior of this tiny jewel of a chapel hidden away in central London, actually threatened to upstage the outrageous designs of Bowery. Leigh Bowery, an interdisciplinary artist, model, muse to Lucian Freud, fashion icon and legendary fixture on the London club scene of the 1980s and 90s was famed for his 'looks' in which he would combine provocative make-up and outlandish outfits to dramatic effect in avante garde performances using his own body as an artistic medium. Seven of Bowery's costumes are featured here, and it was an especial pleasure to see the Dalmation outfit once again. Dalmation was one of the costumes Bowery wore in his one week residency at the Anthony D'Offay Gallery in 1988. Each afternoon he would give a different improvisational performance in full costume and make-up behind a one-way mirror, striking a number of narcissistic poses as a living sculpture. I was studying at St. Martin's College at the time and would drop in every day on my way home just to witness the spectacle, and realise that I was watching something/somebody who was both extraordinary and very unique. The costumes here at the Fitzrovia Chapel are amazing manifestations of Bowery's wonderful imagination, but seem to be a shadow of themselves without the larger than life body and personality of Bowery to fill and animate them. There is a specially produced short film which plays to accompany the display - Leigh Bowery ~ Tell Them I've Gone To Papua New Guinea, (something Leigh Bowery would instruct friends and confidants to tell people, rather than letting them know he was actually terminally ill in hospital). The film features a series of talking head anecdotes from friends and collaborators such as Boy George, and Bowery's wife Nicola Bateman, which are at turns both funny and disgusting. Not everyone will 'get' or appreciate Bowery's aesthetic, but anyone who will have lived through the time will understand how crucial his personal expression displayed through his art, and the part he played in the counter culture was to the period.

The Fitzrovia Chapel

 

Flower, 1987

 

Dalmation, 1988

 

 

 

Crewel work, 1988

 

 

 Ombre, 1988

Ostrich, 1990

 

 

 

The Fitzrovia Chapel is a Grade II* listed Italian Gothic Revival-style building designed by John Loughborough Pearson and his son Frank. Built from 1891-92 the chapel contains a rib vaulted ceiling featuring opulent gold mosaics, and walls of decoratively patterned marble with mosaic inscriptions which were completed in 1929. The mosaics really glisten and shimmer in the chapel's low light. It is such a beautiful venue. The Chapel has a special relationship to and is also a poignant venue for this exhibition, as it is the sole remaining building of the larger of the Middlesex hospital complex which used to surround the chapel, the hospital where Leigh died of AIDS on New Year's Eve 1994.

 

 

Angel, 1986

 

 

Leigh wearing the Angel jacket with Boy George

 

 Fraggle Rock, 1992

Leigh Bowery ~ Tell Them I've Gone to Paua New Guinea

until 6th February

The Fitzrovia Chapel

2 Pearson Square

Fitzroy Place

W1