'Journey's End', oil on canvas, 120 x 200cms
After twenty years of
public exhibitions, projects, commissions, and grant awards I'm pleased to say
that I've finally managed to achieve some decent gallery representation.
Following a really hot and sweaty trip to Sheffield with a van full of paintings last Friday, followed by
a great meeting with gallery director Karen Sherwood, I'm pleased to say that
the city's excellent Cupola Gallery want to represent my paintings. They have
taken several large pieces and drawings for now, and want to stage a bigger show
of my work next year. Hurrah! My practice just seems like a long and forever ongoing
apprenticeship of things tried and lessons learned...
'Canal', oil on canvas, 120 x 150cms
This
is something I’ve been trying to rather faltering strive for for a long time,
but have never felt like I had the work to approach many places- largely because
of the large scale of so many of my paintings, but also the subject matter.
I’ve since realized that I have been misguided with this, as my meeting at
Cupola demonstrated, and the level of interest I’ve had in my motorway
paintings since embarking on them with the help of the Arts Council. Karen and
Graham, the manager, at Cupola praised their originality, and it was
interesting discussing other paintings of mine such as my tree paintings, which
form part of the same series, as being less original and therefore less
appealing. As for the scale, Karen quite rightly pointed out how I worked much
better on a larger scale, with smaller pieces looking more ‘compromised’. They ended up keeping ‘Journey’s End’ as one of their selection (top), which is one of my biggest paintings. They were also encouraging about some of my
new paintings such as ‘Canal’ above.
I
really enjoyed my time at the gallery with Karen and Graham, who were both full
of advice and enthusiasm, and I saw some great work there. I was particularly
struck by the paintings of Mandy Payne (below), who apparently was personally
selected by Sir Norman Ackroyd for this year’s RA summer show, and is also a
prizewinner in this year’s John Moore’s Painting Prize in Liverpool.
Mandy Payne, 'Brutal', aerosol on concrete
I’m
really excited to think that for once someone else now has a vested interest in
selling my work and getting it more widely seen than me. It’s also interesting to think that my work is
now getting promoted outside of the Midlands. I’ve found there are very few
decent commercial opportunities in and around Birmingham, hence casting my net
much wider. So, for now, I’ve signed a
six month contract with the gallery until January 2015, which we will review in
November. This feels like the beginning of a welcome new chapter..
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