The
Islands Across the Sea
6 February – 9 March
2013
View works by Claire
Partington | Cornelia O'Donovan
View
Installation Images
A long time ago, before the Age of Reason, the world
was explained through stories and imagination. People
became animals; animals became spirits; good deeds
were rewarded; naughty children were imprisoned, eaten,
or worse. And while we may believe ourselves long removed
from such fantasies, old narratives still have the
ability to resonate deeply within us. The Islands Across
the Sea is an exhibition bringing together two artists
who explore the enduring potency of myth and folklore,
drawing on old tales and historical figures from the
British Isles to show how they still hold powerful
sway over our imagination.
With her new series of earthenware
figures, Claire Partington presents us with a hedonistic
royal court full of dazzling,
vice-addled characters drawn from a variety of historical
and mythical sources. Bluebeard appears as a bulldozing
Henry VIII, laying down the law to his knife-wielding
wife, with Love and Hate tattooed across his knuckles.
The Lion and the Unicorn, the emblems of the Union of
England and Scotland, become a pair of Tudor boxers itching
for a fight, the unicorn beckoning the lion on with a
provocative index finger. Velazquez’s scowling
Mariana of Austria transforms into Goldilocks, dressed
in a broad elaborate mantua and with an arrogant scowl
across her face, in line with the ugly old woman the
character was in the original British version of the
tale. And Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, appears dressed
in her coronation robes, with a pregnant bump protruding
from beneath. All have subtle references to 21st century
culture embedded into them, creating a body of work that
combines history, humour, imagination and technical virtuosity.
Cornelia
O’Donovan plays with old folklore and
poetry, but in a loose and dreamlike way. She draws particularly
on tales native to the British Isles, and especially
Celtic poetry and myth – from the tale of Prince
Llewellyn’s grief at the sacrifice of his greyhound
Gellert being, to the figurative ballads of Ellen O’Leary
and lines from WB Yeats. Her paintings are flat, stripped
of all perspective or realism, their surfaces hazy and
meandering like an old tale retold a thousand times.
Roughly rendered yet delicately arranged, she creates
patterned compositions reminiscent of old tapestries
into which she plants naïve pre-Modern motifs. Outlines
of old figures, ancient heralds, esoteric herbs and familiar
animals all appear like inherited objects worn smooth
by the touch of innumerable hands. They retain the homespun
quality of medieval rustic artworks, flowing across the
canvas like a stroll through a country garden.
Together these two artists describe the magic of storytelling
through objects rather than words. Ideas and images appear
that echo through our cultural history, changing shape
and context, and yet somehow retaining the same power
to fascinate, to frighten, to beguile and entertain.
for more information please contact
the gallery.
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