joseph scissorhands

Sunday, 9 May 2021

William Tillyer: Watercolours

Reflections on the Esk The Mulgrave Watercolours, 2019

I came across this exhibition purely by chance whilst on my way to another. I stopped to take it in however, as the bold, painterly, splashy brushstrokes seen through the gallery window really appealed, moving me in much the same way that those of Jessica Rankin's did which I'd seen a few days previously (in my last post). Most of the works in this exhibition reference Tillyer's extensive travels, evoking English and foreign landscapes in both representational and abstract imagery. The brushstrokes and saturated colours here were both bold and yet beautifully nuanced. The white watercolour paper background and translucent watercolour medium in which they were executed gave the colours an almost luminous quality like stained glass seen in the sunshine, which really enhanced their appeal. I couldn't help but draw parallels with the dreamy watercolours of JMW Turner which were equally as evocative of a sense of place and climatic conditions. Turner was innovative in his day in his use of technique and application of paint, and I saw something similar here too in Tillyer's paintingThe Bedford Hills where he cuts V shapes into the painted paper and paints the reverse, he then peels these back to disrupt the rhythms and textures of the picture surface adding a completely new dimension to the painting. Sometimes chance encounters are the most rewarding.

Englishman's Bay, 2003

Englishman's Bay, 2003 (details)

Installation View

Zephyr - Claude, 2019

Zephyr - Stratos Cumulus, 2019

The Corsham Iris 1, 2019

The Corsham Iris 2, 2019

The Corsham Iris 3, 2019

Esk Bridge 7, 1980

Palm Trees Near Antibes 1, 1983

The Bedford Hills, 2001

The Age of Anxiety/The Kerry Sunset Watercolours, 2002

Fallingwater Variation 26, 1993

Air Wind Light Water, The Fall Cape Cod, 2009

Falling Sky Dropping Fatness on the Earth, 2012

The Watering Place, 2013

Hebrus, 2015

For A. O./Articulations, 2017

Reflections on the Esk The Mulgrave Watercolours, 2019

William Tillyer Watercolours

exhibition closed 24th April

Bernard Jacobson Gallery

28 Duke Street

St James's

London

SW1

Sunday, 2 May 2021

Jessica Rankin 'the nostalgia for the infinite'

Strange Currents EA, 2020

"I was able to make the conversation between embroidery and painting more explicit. By mimicking and echoing each other the paint and the thread can explore the hierarchy of gesture and materials. They both play with the ideas of quickness and slowness." - Jessica Rankin.

To White Cube, Bermondsey, to catch this exciting exhibition of embroidery-embellished paintings by Jessica Rankin. Thread and textiles appear to have become increasingly acceptable and appreciated as bona-fide works of art in galleries lately. Recent examples were encountered here, and here. These paintings by Rankin beautifully merge the practices of fine art painting and embroidery. I enjoy the duality of the energetic, seemingly spontaneous application of paint, against the slower, more measured process of the embroidery techniques. It makes for some particularly dynamic artworks where paint explodes onto the canvas and delicately stitched threads mimic and enhance the paint spatters. The discovery of "hidden" embroidered text displaying the artworks titles along the edges of these canvases whilst following the leads of the threads off the canvas was an added delightful bonus. Rankin explains - "I love playing with the places where the paint and the thread meet, specifically where the paint meets the edge of the stretched surface... the very body of the stretcher feels like a sculpture to me and so the sides of that paintings became as much a part of the painting as the surface. I found that the language could sit there far more comfortably – like the spine of a book."