A MOMENT BEFORE DECADENCE Frankie Charles, Jonathan Kipps, Geoff Diego Litherland, David Watkins
30th April - 23rd May 2010 Curated By Jonathan Kipps
The exhibition aims to consolidate painting’s relationship to installation art and sculpture, drawing attention to the physicality of the medium and departing from its traditional constraints to create work that demands being experienced. Referencing areas of painting’s history as starting points, these artists push their materials and processes to their physical limits, stopping just a moment before decadence prevails.
Norwich based artist Frankie Charles’ fogged, long exposure photographs capture an extended moment of time, resulting in soft photographic monochrome abstractions. By utilising defunct and broken objects, Charles also transforms light sources into kinetic projections, which reference sci-fi and cosmic phenomena, creating fleeting compositions of shifting colours.
Jonathan Kipps’ work takes into consideration the space that it is contained in. Although he uses pigment and canvas, he pushes the sculptural potential of painting to its limits. Architectural spaces seem to fight to confine huge sculptural forms.
Geoff Diego Litherland’s layers of bright colour are sparring with references to the past, culminating in unexpected tensions within the confines of a canvas. Thick luscious paint parts to reveal romantic landscapes and rhythmical coloured lines sit against dark subtle backgrounds.
With the hand of the artist removed through neglecting the use of a brush, David Watkins’ painting process is left purely to chance. However, by stopping the action at a crucial moment, the best stage of the process is captured on the surface. In the new work made especially for this exhibition enormous veils of colour will dramatically change the gallery space.