sarah Wiseman gallery
5th-26th March
Inner Space
Inner Space seeks to explore our relationship with interiors through the work of five artists: Dawn Beckles, Kate Montgomery, Lindsey Moran, Alison Pullen and Adam Stone. Throughout art history, the interior is a recurring element in compositions depicting everyday life, in portraiture or still life traditions, as artists hint at stories and meaning in objects and furnishings. We often think of domestic interiors as a personal space, our homes serving as an expression of ourselves and the lives we live within those walls. This group of artists looks into a variety of interiors and how they mirror different ideas and values as well as the time we spend in them - grand public spaces, abandoned communal buildings, everyday homes and imagined rooms. Alison Pullen returns with her signature collage paintings, created in situ. In this collection of beautifully observed work she has generously been invited to paint at the Ashmolean Museum and Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford. These grand historical interiors are contrasted with paintings from private homes, where we can contemplate the everyday of people living here. Kate Montgomery’s richly decorative paintings are imagined interior worlds of women and girls, inspired by childhood and stories from literature or of a more personal nature. Beautiful patterns and jewel-like colours
draw us in and prompts thoughts on the scene of figures depicted. Considered details such as bowls of fruit or children's toys strewn on a floor add to the sense of domestic quiet and the intimate nature of stories played out here. With vibrant colour Dawn Beckles celebrates the intimate relationships between ourselves and the objects in our homes. Her carefully furnished roomscapes are constructed to draw you into a world where you wish to know more. With a mix of collage and painting she infuses luxury interior design with exotic flora inspired by her native Barbados. Printmaker Lindsey Moran introduces subtle tones of light and dark through her exploration of grand public places. Working in photopolymer, a complex process that includes her original photography, she creates imagery with the hushed, serene quality of old photo gravure. The focus is on subtle contrasts highlighting details of opulent architecture or the structure of plants. Adam Stone’s collection focuses on absence, capturing abandoned places as they wait silently for redevelopment. The paintings are haunted by past activity, with hints of the lives once lived out in them- a hotel lobby, an empty café, a dusty stairwell. Inner Space explores what it means to be in our own space, whether that’s our homes or some other place, perhaps in our dreams. Come on in and have a look around!
Please join us for the opening of Inner Space on Saturday 5th March. Drinks will be served from 12:00 noon. Later this month, our visitors will have the opportunity to meet artists Dawn Beckles, Kate Montgomery, Lindsey Moran and Alison Pullen at the gallery on Saturday 19th March, 11:00 - 13:00. At this time of so many people fleeing their homes in Ukraine, a percentage of the sales from the exhibition will go to the charity Sunflower of Peace to help provide medical supplies.
Inner Space Opening Saturday 5th March
Kate Montgomery
Kate Montgomery presents a view of the home seemingly outside of real time. In her exquisite jewel-like paintings, figures are placed in domestic settings as if they are actors playing out a story on a small stage. Often women or young girls are seen engaged in everyday tasks, at play or simply resting. Glimpsed through windows or half-hidden behind curtains, the viewer is allowed a hint of a narrative; perhaps a thoughtful, quiet moment, a memory of a personal story, or a tale from literature. Childhood features strongly with many paintings depicting a parlour game or a mysterious scene from imaginative play. A highlight in the collection is Short Story where we find a woman deep in conversation on the telephone while a dog yaps at her feet. Behind her, we see a spectacular chinoiserie wall and even further into the painting we catch sight of three girls posing in front of a mural-like landscape. The painting has a captivating beauty that appeals to the viewer but it also prompts thoughts on the ambiguous scene presented to us. Kate Montgomery’s rich palette and diminutively scaled work serve as an interesting foil for the highly ornate patterns included in much of her painting. We find our eyes drawn to exquisite wall paper or the colourful fabric of a dress, yet they are not a distraction; rather the patterns and intricacy of detail form part of a narrative, allowing us to become absorbed in the image.
Kate Montgomery 'Girl from the Village' Casein on birch panel H 30 x 26 cm image size H 45 x 41 cm framed
Kate Montgomery Railway Cottage Casein on birch panel H 26 x 30 cm image size H 40 x 44 cm framed
Kate Montgomery Anecdote Casein on birch panel H 16.5 x 25.5 cm image size H 28 x 37 cm framed
Kate Montgomery Marianne / Marion Casein on birch panel H 30 x 26 cm image size H 44.5 x 40.2 cm framed
Kate Montgomery Hula Hooper Casein on birch panel H 25.5 x 16.5 cm image size H 37 x 28 cm framed
Kate Montgomery Interior Casein on birch panel H 25 x 30 cm image size H 37 x 26.5 cm framed
Kate Montgomery Short Story Casein on birch panel H 30 x 26 cm image size H 45 x 41 cm framed
Kate Montgomery Golden Hour Casein on birch panel H 30 x 26 cm image size H 45 x 41 cm framed
Lindsey Moran
Printmaker Lindsey Moran has a keen interest in the relationship between printmaking and photography. Her research in photographic processes old and new influence the direction of her work and Lindsey now works predominantly with photopolymer - a resin that changes properties when exposed to light- experimentally combining the technique with chine collé and archival inkjet printing. She carries her camera everywhere to capture the influence of light in different environments, her images in black and white forming the basis for her printmaking. In the collection for Inner Space , we focus on her architectural series exploring the grandeur of Victorian greenhouses and opulent buildings such as the V & A museum, with directional light softly illuminating the interiors. She is drawn to places that reflect her love of learning and she seeks out locations that curate and store knowledge or have a significant historical importance. Her work has a quality of the quiet serenity of old photographs. The print ‘V&A Stairwell’ for example invites you to reflect on the feeling of a museum when all its visitors have left for the day, a quiet descending on the place and a sense of peace restored.
Lindsey Moran Empty Chair Photopolymer etching H 21 x 15 cm image size
Lindsey Moran Window Light Photopolymer etching H 21 x 15 cm image size
Lindsey Moran Palm House - Kew Gardens Photopolymer etching H 30 x 21 cm image size
Lindsey Moran Stairs - Kew Gardens Photopolymer etching H 42 x 30 cm image size
Lindsey Moran V & A Stairs Photopolymer etching H 42 x 30 cm image size
Lindsey Moran The Great Conservatory II Photopolymer etching H 42 x 30 cm image size
Dawn Beckles
In Dawn’s collection for Inner Space, her innate sense of play is evident; the viewer finding artworks nestled within artworks as she places detailed, miniature paintings within her paintings. Sculptures or clay pots perch on shelves, filled with flowers; intersecting lines and planes of strong, vibrant colour are pleasingly juxtaposed with softer elements in collage. Dawn celebrates relationships between objects and their owners, immersing herself and the viewer into the worlds she creates. We are offered a view of a person reflected in their home, in the arrangements of objects, paintings and plants. At times, her compositions seem dream-like; in her painting That We Could Live for example , Dawn has offered up a view of both an interior world and an outdoor space, the two realms expressed together seamlessly. Look out too, for her highly desirable Miniatures series, each featuring a single ceramic pot in pared back, almost austere shapes, painted with Dawn’s signature jewel bright colour palette. Dawn will often paint the edge of the canvas a contrasting neon, creating something that is partly an object in itself and partly a painting.
Dawn Beckles Process the Difference Acrylic, 24 ct gold leaf and collage on canvas H 78 x 68 cm framed
Dawn Beckles That We Could Live Acrylic, 24ct gold leaf, and collage on canvas H 100 x 100 cm
Dawn Beckles Watch Over Acrylic and collage on wood panel H 25 x 25 cm image size H 33 x 33 cm framed
Dawn Beckles Somebody Acrylic and collage on wood panel H 25 x 25 cm image size H 33 x 33 cm framed
Dawn Beckles There Are No Words Acrylic, 24ct gold leaf, collage on canvas H 100 x 80 cm
Dawn Beckles Fruity Breakfast I Acrylic on birch panel H 40 x 30 cm image size H 48 x 38 cm framed
Dawn Beckles Fruity Breakfast II Acrylic on birch panel H 40 x 30 cm image size H 48 x 38 cm framed
Dawn Beckles Willing Acrylic, spraypaint, 24ct gold leaf and collage on birch panel H 38 x 48 cm framed
Dawn Beckles Acrylic on birch panel H 12 x 12 cm image size H 19 x 19 cm framed
Top L-R: Mini 47-49 Bottom L-R: Mini 50-52
Adam Stone
Adam Stone’s haunting series of paintings for Inner Space explores the absence of presence. He has painted at different sites in his native Leeds that were waiting to be re-developed, capturing their essence before it was forever erased. We walk through these paintings of empty cafes, dusty stairwells, a hotel room haunted by the past iterations of the rooms, the traces of lives lived are still detectable. The familiarity of them makes us wonder if we may have passed through, draws us in and holds us in a moment of time, the reality of which has now gone. These paintings are from a wider body of work and were included in the exhibition, Painting as Poiesis: Encounters with the Merrion Centre. Adam Stone first exhibited in Sarah Wiseman Gallery's inaugural exhibition Fresh Paint in 1998. Adam studied at the Royal Academy Schools, London and has recently completed his PhD in Fine Art Practice at Leeds University and he is currently a lecturer in Fine Art there.
Adam Stone The Chairs Oil on canvas H 60 x 81 cm Framed
Adam Stone Stairwell Oil on canvas H 87 x 107 cm
Adam Stone Doppelganger Oil on canvas H 107 x 87 cm
Adam Stone Lobby Oil on canvas H 91 x 110 cm Framed
Adam Stone Absence Oil on canvas H 87 x 107 cm
Adam Stone Tables and Chairs Oil on canvas H 60 x 45 cm Framed
Adam Stone Snack Bar Oil on canvas H 97 x 148 cm
Working entirely in situ, Alison Pullen’s paintings are made using the power of observational drawing, and as such are filled with the unique energy and vitality that is found in drawings made from life. There are often challenges, which she relishes as it adds to the sense of energy and urgency. She may be working against fast-changing light conditions, or have to limit distractions; often she must find a place to work that offers the best pictorial possibilities, but avoid the crowds of people filing past her in some public buildings. ‘There is no waiting for the muse to strike!’ she has remarked. Over the years, she has developed her technique of recording the scene in front of her by using collage. “I love collage because in using it you already have something that needs changing,” she says. “I use whole scenes which are a reference to another place or space. I am in control of the process and yet, I am not.’ We find ourselves wondering about the occupants of these places, and what kind of lives they lead. Alison’s paintings tap into our natural curiosity about other lives, as anyone who wandered through a historic home or castle can attest. Alison says; “I think I have a particular affinity with interiors because they are so personal. In the paintings of historic houses, I am inspired by the thought of all the people who lived there, and what has happened in those people’s lives in those rooms. Like layers of wallpaper, each person has left their mark in the room.”
Alison Pullen
Alison Pullen Parsons Green Interior - Bequest Mixed media H 91 x 84 cm image size H 104 x 111 cm approx. framed
Alison Pullen Bayswater Interior - X Mixed media H 94 x 80 cm image size H 114 x 100 cm approx. framed
Alison Pullen Cambridge Interior - Splash Hits Mixed media H 76 x 98 cm image size H 96 x 118 cm approx. framed
Alison Pullen Christchurch Cathedral - Top Floor Mixed media H 87 x 70 cm image size H 107 x 90 cm approx. framed
Alison Pullen Ashmolean Museum, Randolph Gallery - Paris Match Mixed media H 71 x 87 cm image size H 91 x 107 cm approx. framed
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Sarah Wiseman Gallery