Eileen Agar - Another Look

Eileen Agar - Ondine, 1972

 

"One should be able, ideally, to make paintings which throw off imagery of different kinds at different times to different people, continually unfolding different aspects of themselves" - Eileen Agar

 

 

I didn't get to see Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy the recent large retrospective at the Whitechapel gallery sadly, but was fortunate enough to be able to make it to this exhibition at the Redfern Gallery celebrating the art of Agar and featuring five invited contemporary artists. The work and spirit of Agar presides over this show like a high priestess whose acolytes pay due homage to her through their own work. Known for early associations with the Surrealist movement, this exhibition displays some fine examples of Agar's work ranging from her abstract paintings to her densely layered collages. The paintings demonstrated make you realise just what a fine colourist Agar was featuring a palette dominated here by a variety of cool blues and greens punctuated by contrasting hot oranges and pinks. I was also very impressed with how proficient Agar was with her collage technique, cutting and pastingg to create richly layered inventive compositions. Just across Cork Street is Waddington Custot currently hosting their Peter Blake: Time Traveller, an excellent exhibition of Blake's collages (here). Blake uses collage to tell imaginative, fantastic stories featuring famous figures. Agar uses the collage technique to exploit surface texture and pattern in her work, employing an array of materials to dazzling effect. Of the other associated artists invited to participate in this show it is perhaps Linder (famed for her 1977 Buzzcocks Orgasm Addict single artwork), with her surreal collages who works most closely in the spirit of Agar. They look as though they could have been created back in the 1920s at the height of the Surrealism movement. I wasn't aware of the paintings of Florence Hutchings previously, but loved these collaged paintings of tables and chairs which also looked as though they were conjured from an early period in art history evoking the Cubist works of Picasso, Braque and Gris. The last artist on show here whose work caught my eye was Olivia Fraser with her paintings which were more obviously influenced and derived from Eastern religions, but again still have the sense of the esoteric and mysticismwhich could similarly be attributed to the work of Agar. this is a really intriguing exhibition and the curators have done a good job with the premise of the exhibition and selection of artists and artworks.

 Installation view

 

Linder

 

 Florence Hutchings

 Olivia Fraser

 

Eileen Agar - Another Look

until 10th September

The Redfern Gallery

20 Cork Street

London

W1S

Charlotte Verity - Echoing Green Part II: The Printed Year

 

 Charlotte Verity - CV 28, 2020

 

It is always a real pleasure to discover a new artist whose work inspires and pleases you. One such artist whose work I came across lately is Charlotte Verity, in this exhibition of delicate, sensitively rendered studies of the plethora of flora found in her garden and displayed in Room 2 at Karsten Schubert London. The gallery can be found in the heart of Soho upstairs in a beautifully untouched Grade II listed heritage building in a row of c.1719 former terraced houses on Lexington Street. This is the second exhibition of Verity's works. The first earlier this year showcased her larger paintings, the works exhibited here though are all intimately small in scale but left a powerful impression on me. They are all monoprints executed in painterly smudges, revealing some nuanced surface textures, and certain pieces have been enhanced with the application of muted washes of watercolour. These works are very sparse in that the artist has been very economical in her mark-making, saying just enough with her imagery and giving an almost Oriental aesthetic redolent of those wonderful Ukiyo-e woodblock prints of Hiroshige, Hokusai et al. The monotype printmaking technique is such a lovely process and being one of the most accessible it is a method that I used to introduce my former students to the discipline of printmaking. Monotypes afford a wide range of mark-making techniques, and the finished outcomes are dependent on the pressure applied and lightness/heaviness of touch one chooses to employ in the print process. Verity could be said to be working in the still-life tradition of other British female artists. I saw links in Verity's work to those of female still life painters and printmakers such as Winifred Nicholson and more recently Angie Lewin. There are subtle differences however, as Verity's prints seem to be observed 'en plein air' whilst out in her garden, whilst those of Nicholson and Lewin are observed from an arranged construct in the studio. There appears to be a more natural or spontaneous feel to Verity's monotypes though as they lack the meticulous contrivance and fuss of the carefully composed pictures of the other two mentioned artists, and appear to aim for a more considered simplicity. Like myself and some other creatives the restrictions of the pandemic proved to be a particularly prolific period too for Verity. All the works exhibited here were completed in the isolation of last year's lockdown and were chosen from more than 100 monotypes that she created which depict a range of flora appropriate to whichever season that they grew in her garden. Verity's garden must have provided her with a place of refuge and healing, a haven and balm from the anxieties of the pandemic. These artworks were quietly and confidently executed by Verity during the confinement when the world slowed down, and we were afforded the time and space to consider our art and the world anew.

 

 

 

 

 

Charlotte Verity - Echoing Green Part II: The Printed Year

until 10th September

Karsten Schubert London

44 Lexington Street

London

W1F