Article in Galleries Magazine: Robin Richmond 'On Solitary Fields'

Agrigento, Sicily, acrilic on canvas, £3500

Robin Richmond transcribes landscape and stirs emotion, confidently evoking that intangible sense of infinity, known as the romantic Sublime.  A fiery heat glows in renderings of ancient Sicilian places like Agrigento. In others, like Chekhov’s Dream and Ice Sings –  the diaphanous textures of Lake Rouffiac in January – blues, whites, violets, mauves and jades float and freeze. Warmth and cold enhance one another in Solitary Fields.

Chekhov's Dream, acrylic on canvas, £4750

These canvases encourage the eye and the mind to negotiate distance, depth, reflection and even time, exploring the very borderlines and edges of perception. The notion of an “event horizon”, a boundary in space-time where new forces come into play, springs to mind. Time haunts her History of a Silver Birch Tree in Six Chapters.  Weathered bark becomes almost like human skin, a metaphor for deep time. Her ninth and biggest show so far at Curwen & New Academy reveals a heightened power and concentration.

Corinna Lotz, Galleries Magazine, March 2014

Robin Richmond : On Solitary Fields

6-29^th March 2014

Private View: Wednesday 5^th March 2014 from 6-8pm
Artist Talk: Tuesday 18^th March at 7pm

“Robin Richmond is one of the finest painters working in Britain today” 

Art Review

“Robin Richmond has surely found herself a secure space within the upper echelons of the present incarnation of British Landscape painting”

 Julian Freeman, British Art Journal

Robin Richmond’s work has always been about the physical act of remembering. Her landscapes appear as if glimpsed fleetingly, like mirages with only trace elements of the reality behind seeping through. Swathes of layered colour allude to sky or soil, creating atmospheric, half remembered impressions of horizons, lakes and fields. All are definite places in the world; each painting is precisely titled as an existing location, however we view them as if through a veil or a dream.

Although produced from numerous studies made in nature, these paintings attempt to evoke a sense of place rather than making a literal transcription of a particular environment. They tread a delicate balance between figuration and abstraction, as much recalling an emotional response to the landscape as its factual contours.

[1] The majority of her current works are inspired by French, Sicilian and Italian landscapes. Amongst these are the characteristic skies and textured grounds which are recognisable as archetypal depictions of locations in these countries. Many of the works in this show are made from an isolated studio in South-West France, next to the forested Lake Rouffiac (left) which so often appears as a subject in her paintings.
	[2]

The title of the show, On Solitary Fields is taken from A Light Exists in Spring a much loved poem by Emily Dickinson describing Dickinson’s almost religious experience of nature, specifically in relation to a particular quality of light experienced in Spring. When alone in nature Robin Richmond too is touched briefly by this light whilst in “solitary fields”, a transient experience which she attempts to encapsulate in her paintings.

Robin Richmond lives and works in London and South-West France. She is the author of 7 books and is a regular contributor to numerous arts journals. She has work in a number of museum collections, as well as many private and corporate collections. She attained both her Fine Art BA and her MA in Art History at Chelsea School of Art. She has been a fellow and Artist in Residence at Yale University, USA since 2003. Last year her work was the subject of a major retrospective at the Château D’Excideuil.

For more information see the gallery website for the exhibition: http://www.curwengallery.co.uk/gallery/richmond14/title.htm

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[1] Shadows Hold Their Breath, Reflection, Lake Rouffiac, France, Autumn, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 102 x 152cm

[2] Agrigento, Sicily, 2013, acrylic and lava sand on canvas, 66 x 82cm

Cass Art Interview with Robin Richmond- Currently showing at Curwen Gallery

Interview with Georgia Stephenson

Robin Richmond has been described as ‘one of the finest painters working in Britain today’, and we can see why. Her evocative studies are produced in the natural environment, and seek to document the sense of place rather than making a literal translation. Born in Philadelphia, raised in old Rome, student at Chelsea College of Art in the swinging sixties and now with her largest show to date at the Curwen & New Academy Gallery on the way, the artistic journey of Robin Richmond is one we’re eager to find out more about…

Can you tell us a little about how you became a landscape painter?

I became a landscape painter in 1985 when I had a visiting professorship at the University of California at Santa Cruz. I had previously been a very rigorously figurative portrait painter having grown up in Rome and schooled in Renaissance painting (which is why I did a masters in the History of Art and later wrote art history books) but being exposed to California light and the huge skies of the deserts of Arizona, Nevada and Utah changed me forever.

In 1989 I bought a house in the middle of nowhere in rural South-western France and this became my main studio. The landscape surrounding my French home has become my chief subject. The lake at the bottom of my fielding all seasons and weathers; the molten skies; the furze of trees; the horizon; these are all my subjects. I also travel a lot and this new show contains paintings of Sicily, Tuscany and Umbria.

My work is not transcriptive but evocative. I consider myself to be figurative but am often called abstract. I am not sure what this means....

You paint with a mix of oil and acrylic; do you have a special technique for blending the two? What’s your process like?

 

I became allergic to turpentine after using it for 35 years (my doctor says this is not uncommon!) and as a result began to experiment with acrylics. I was devastated at this development, but over time discovered Golden Acrylics, stocked now by my wonderful branch of Cass Art.

 My London studio is in Islington and I used to traipse down to Charing Cross but now just hop on the bus to Cass Art's flagship store. Very frequently! I love it - such helpful staff and such good materials. My daughter shops there all the way from the South of France, and can’t wait until she can shop online to be delivered there! Lots of my artist friends in France will be thrilled too.

I am trying to use oil again sparingly but as I use my hands a lot I have to use rubber gloves which feels too clinical to me. I like getting my hands dirty and have permanently colourful finger nails, no matter how hard I try.  I am starting again to put glazes of oil over acrylic layers. My work is a matter of many glazes and Golden is so good it mimics oils but without the long drying period and it uses water of course.

Can you tell us a little about your upcoming exhibition ‘On Solitary Fields’?

The new show is about remembering landscape and recreating it in the mind and in the studio with all the vagueness this entails. The Harvard neuroscientist Patrick Cavanagh says;" our visual system reflexively fills in our expressions and mood...going deeper into our mental state than any fully explicit painting could."

I could not put it better. I am interested in emotion and in getting that part of my viewers' mind to participate in the act of looking at my work.

What would your advice be to those who’d are curious but a little uncertain about trying landscape painting?

Landscape painting is as easy or difficult as you want to make it. I take students out into the fields and they start off daunted and scared of all the beauty. But just allowing the mind to run free and slosh colour around is an amazing process. Landscape is easier to paint than people. It doesn't talk back and has no ego!

On Solitary Fields will be on display from 6th-19th March 2014 at the Curwen & New Academy Gallery in Central London. Visit the gallery website for more details on the show.

Andrew Ingamells and Chloe Cheese

5th February - 1st March 2014 This month Curwen Gallery is showing the work of two very different contemporary printmakers, Chloe Cheese and Andrew Ingamells. Both printmakers are respected figures within the field and have been working with their medium for many years. Chloe Cheese, a trustee of the Curwen Print study center, has a long standing relationship with Curwen Gallery. Chloe works from the Curwen Studio using lithographic methods to create her prints.After leaving the Royal College of Art in 1976 she went on to work as an artist and illustrator. Quickly becoming well known for her distinctive work, she created a much imitated style which is instantly recognisable. She has exhibited at galleries worldwide and has work in public collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, London and the Arts Council of Great Britain.Chloe Cheese has also worked as a freelance illustrator with clients including The Sunday Times, Terence Conran at Habitat and Commes Des Garcons Japan. Chloëʼs personal work always concerns her view of the world around her which she interprets according to her own observation and sensibility. Sometimes the first use or intention of buildings and things which have been lost or altered. She tries to retain a sense of history and how this subtly infiltrates our visual landscape. Andrew Ingamells, showing in the lower gallery, is renowned for his portrayal of architectural subjects in both the U.K and abroad. His work, although contemporary in feel, continues a tradition of neo-classical draughtmanship made popular by Piranesi and others. Born in 1956, Andrew Ingamells trained at St.Albans School of Art and the London College of Printing before embarking on a career as a graphic designer and illustrator. It was during this time that he started making drawings of individual buildings and architectural landscapes of London.

New Year / New Work

9th January - 1st February 2014 New Year/ New Work is a mixed exhibition including work from many of the artists represented by Curwen Gallery. All of the work is new to the gallery and many pieces have been made especially for this exhibition. Highlights of the show include Marjan Wouda's exceptional Crescent Monkey- a solid bronze monkey with a particularly attractive verdigris patina. He's been getting a lot of interest, not least because of a rather tense stand off he appears to be engaging in with another of Marjan Wouda's works, Hare After Tsui' Po, which is eyeballing him rather inquisitively. Other works receiving a lot of attention are a selection by Richard Walker- a long time good friend of Curwen Gallery. The Trellick Tower makes another appearance in Trellick/ Relic (also seen in Trellick Day and Trellick night from his 2011 show). The card image- Richard Walker's Sacred Spaces has recieved the most inquiries of any other work in the show, although despite all this attention is still available to buy. Another artist who has proved to be a great favourite at Curwen Gallery is Robin Richmond, who will be having her 9th Solo Exhibition with Curwen Gallery this March.She has included four works for the exhibition, giving something of a sneak preview of what her upcoming exhibition may look like. There has been a lot of excitement surrounding all of these new works by her, however one in particular has stood out from the crowd (Winter Words)(below) and divided her fans and critics. Another work, more characteristic of her style Fields in Fog, Po River(below) reminds us that Robin Richmond has not lost her touch when producing subtle, dreamlike images of semi- abstract landscapes. See http://www.curwengallery.co.uk/gallery/newyearnewwork14/title.htm for more information including prices and availability of work.

Glynn Boyd Harte : 5-23rd December 2013

An exhibition celebrating the life and work of Glynn Boyd Harte; artist,author, illustrator and traveller as well as being "one of the most curious and flamboyant characters on the London social scene," (Telegraph 2003). 10 years since his death Curwen Gallery is holding a retrospective of his remaining works, taken from the personal collection of his widow, Carrie Boyd Harte. The exhibition contains a wide selection of works from many different periods of the artist's life.Many recall periods of spent abroad, such as the vivid illustrations from his much celebrated book Mr Harte's Holiday, represented in the exhibition by Villa Les Flots (above) and Boite aux Lettre as well as many other works.Other pieces, such as the wonderful Salmon(below- a gallery favourite and one of the first to sell) and Le Bain Marie, were produced as commercial illustrations for papers and advertisements. Many of Boyd Harte's most interesting works celebrate particular times and places in the artists life, conjuring up an idea of a traditional Parisian cafe breakfast or the view of a favourite Fitzrovia shopfront.It is this effortless capturing of a moment which distinguishes him from his many imitators.His choice of scene is so often unconventional, as can be seen in L'Aquarelle (below) or Five Chairs, yet at the same time so appropriate to his subject. Also on sale are two of his exceptionally rare artists books, Temples of Power (a study of the architecture of London Power stations) and Souvenier of Metroland (produced with the poet,John Betjeman).Many of his classic lithographs are also included in the exhibition, Champagne and Sardines, two immensely successful prints which are now very hard to get hold of. Glynn Boyd Harte was born in Lancashire in 1948 and graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1973. He was also an accomplished pianist and composer and was locally famous for his flamboyant clothing and lavish fancy dress parties.He was master of the Art Workers Guild in 1995 and had regular solo exhibitions at Francis Kyle Gallery and Curwen Gallery as well as various galleries in Paris and New York. He travelled extensively, from St. Petersburg to San Francisco, with frequent stays painting in Paris. Glynn divided his time between his homes in Fitzrovia, London and Normandy, France.He died at the age of 55 on 16th December 2003, mid-way through his solo exhibition "Apples and Artichokes" at Curwen Gallery. For more information on the exhibition see the gallery website for an online catalogue of the exhibition.

Macmillan Support Fundraising Weekend

Saturday 30th November and Sunday 1st December 2013

Every year Curwen Gallery  runs a special exhibition in aid of the charity Macmillan Cancer Support.All works sold in the exhibition give a percentage (at least 10%) of the wall price to the charity.
The exhibition is an eclectic mix of many different artists including those represented by the gallery, artists that are new to us and artists that exhibit with the gallery on this one occassion and are specific to the exhibition.

Suzanne Baker, Kerry Fir I, goache, £875

This year we are very priviledged to be showing a large body of work from the distinguished scultptor Trevor Edmands. Edmands makes sculptural assemblages of found objects which have a distinct feeling of the later sculptural works of Antoni Tapies.This altered violin is a particularly close example and one of our favourite pieces from the collection.

Trevor Edmands, Spirit of the Violin, altered violin

Another interesting piece on show is Sardines by Robin Spalding, small, framed plaster castings of actual sardines, gilded with silver leaf and then painted to look (almost!) like the real thing. They were made in response to the much loved lithograph Sardines by Glynn Boyd Harte (showing immediately at Curwen Gallery after as part of a large retrospective of the artist).

Robin Spalding, Sardines, plaster, silver leaf and oil, £360

New to the gallery is Charlotte Lyon, a very successful artist currently living and working in Amsterdam.Her lovely piece Piranhas (below) is part of a small body of work which she has brought to the UK specifically for this exhibition.Also in this exhibition are a new line of mugs by gallery artist Brendan Hansbro, featuring animal characters from his otherworldly menagerie.

Charlotte Lyon, Piranhas, acrylic with charcoal, 50 x 50cm, £1200

More information on this exhibition can be found on the Curwen Gallery website.