Henry Walsh: Presence and Absence

07-29 November 2012
Private View Tues 06 November 6-8pm

“My work begins with snapshots of busy city life and by a process of elimination I refocus the image on elements that encapsulate a sober thoughtfulness.’ - HW

Henry Walsh, Eleure, 100 x 100cm, £4000

Henry Walsh’s third solo exhibition with Curwen Gallery, will be the largest collection of his work together to date. Many of the themes that have run through his work in the last few years will be visible. His fascination is largely with people in a space, be it crowds of people or solitary individuals. He gathers imagery of bustling city life, and the quieter parks and squares of the city where people go to find space and time to rest or reflect.

The resulting paintings show often only a few details of the scene, a couple seated on a park bench, their surroundings except for the bench, eliminated by white paint. This simplicity allows the viewer to fill in the gaps. What half narrative we are given, we can complete ourselves. Each painting is given its own obscure title, often a little-known word from the dictionary, leaving the viewer to reconcile it’s meaning with the visual image.


Henry Walsh, Strata XI, 13 x13cm, £200 

 In several works there is a sense of shared purpose; groups of people all walking in the same direction carrying suitcases or searching in the ground for something. But devoid of any setting in time or place where they are going to, what they are carrying, or looking for, all remains a tantalising mystery.

Occasionally the work is stripped back completely leaving only figures standing, seemingly stranded, on a plain. In this nothingness, stripped of their natural surroundings and any other objects, there can be no other focus than the figures themselves. A high viewpoint and miniaturisation gives the viewer a deific look over humanity. Are they looking at a black bleak horizon and recognising their own precious fragility, or are they bravely forging a path to an unknown future? The presence of light and shadows brings drama and somehow an intense presence of hope.

Henry Walsh, Confluentia IV, 50 x 70cm, £1100

Whatever the narratives behind the imagery, Walsh’s work seems to captivate viewers through a basic human curiosity of other people. We all like people watching to some extent, wondering what others are doing, saying or thinking, picking out the clues that might answer our desire to know.

Born on the 20th April 1978 in Norwich, England. Henry studied art at Ipswich College in Suffolk, and then Loughborough University in Leicestershire. In 2011 he moved to live in the Peak District. He is now a freelance artist & designer. Henry continues to exhibit regularly in group and solo exhibitions in London, New York, Scandinavia and Northwest England.


http://www.curwengallery.co.uk/gallery/walsh12/title.htm