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CITY ART GALLERY & MUSEUM
- Alan Smith: Ellipsis Series
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 Ellipsis Series by Alan Smith |
| Alan's new paintings,
the `Ellipsis Series ', testify to the continuing relevance of painting
and are a discerning response to the challenge of its apparent confines.
There is an immediate sense that the work is very contemporary in
form and impulse, containing a quietly assertive concern with what
can be eradicated from the paintings in the interests of allowing
a more subliminal solution to emerge. Alan writes of his fascination
for "...what is at the edge of our vision, sensed as well as seen...".
Often our glimpses of understanding are experienced at the periphery
of our senses and help to question and dispute initial appearances.
There is a feeling that the viewer is passing through the work and that the activity contained by the painted panels is only part of the exposure, providing residual evidence for continued activity beyond the confines of the painting. The work mistrusts and questions aesthetic appearances and is cautious of involvement with notions of lyrical passages of paint, gestural marks, nuances of colour and specific narrative. Instead a process is used which Alan describes as "...cleaning, revealing, polishing, amending and re-constituting a surface." At one level these can be seen as straightforward, practical tasks which allow for recognition, response and decision -making but eliminate superficial mannerisms; at another level they act as personal, poetic metaphor. The result is that the work has been engaged to allow the relationships of colour and surface to develop and claim their own place in the paintings. It may seem a paradox that initially the viewer could be drawn in by strength of colour and surface; but time spent with the work gradually unravels clues that this strength relates to the questions being asked and the consequences of associated decisions. The work evokes a migratory feel and a sense of the itinerant journey man leaving a significant impact and then shifting on. |
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Work on Show
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Ellipsis Series: New Work |
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In the studio |
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On show |
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| Gallery Plan |