painting – Like It Was Done By A Toddler

And the Wolf (2019, watercolour on paper)

This brooding work steps away from her recent Abstract Expressionist themes to explore her feminist influences. Williams situates herself here not just in an artistic tradition but explicitly within a female one, in the work’s clear allusion both to the spare yet energetic, fraying lines and the passionate social engagement of Nancy Spero, but also…

I Contain Multitudes (2019, watercolour on paper)

This striking watercolour sees the artist engaging with contemporary ‘splatter’ painters such as Matthew Munsey, as well as a bold monochromatic tone in deepest Prussian blue. The dramatic effect created by folding the two ‘splattered’ halves of the work together, mirroring the painted areas over one another, creates a dramatic effect reminiscent of insect shapes,…

Archetypes 5: It’s A Hard Rain Gonna Fall (2019, tempura on canvas)

This brooding addition to the Archetypes series departs from the light-filled watercolour technique of earlier painting, employing layers of intensely coloured tempura on canvas to convey an apocalyptic atmosphere that draws from end of the world scenarios as diverse as Bob Dylan’s metaphor-strewn landscapes and today’s Extinction Rebellion youth climate change protests as well as…

Swiss Garden 1-5 (2018, mixed media on paper)

Swiss Garden 1 Named for a garden created in the Victorian era by the 3rd Baron Ongley at Old Warden in Bedfordshire, this lapidary series of mixed media miniatures evokes the deep green foliage, bright splashed of blossom and carefully-crafted little vistas typical of the eponymous garden. Swiss Garden 2 Deep greens, cobalt blues and…

Church Going I-III (2018, acrylic on canvas)

Church Going I: Mass, Brixton This poignant series draws its title from the famous Larkin poem in which the author, despite himself being an atheist, visits a church mid-week while out cycling and wonders what will become of such buildings once the gradual withdrawal of faith from its once-central place in English life is complete:…

Archetypes 4: Pegasus (2018, watercolour)

The artist returns to her Archetypes series with a high-octane rendition of one of the most represented figures from Greek mythology: Pegasus, the winged stallion born from Medusa’s death and ridden by Bellerophon in his battle against the Chimera. The blurring and indistinct forms give the sense of movement at great speed: winged horse and…

[VISITING ARTIST] Chargers (2018, acrylic on canvas)

This lyrical figurative painting represents a rare departure for Pipsinella from her more austerely contemporary conceptual work. Rich colours and dense composition evoke medieval tapestry, while the two heavy horses depicted in motion across the canvas hint at the power and drama of the vanished age of chivalry. And yet the painter’s vantage point, well…

Archetypes 3: Et In Arcadia Ego (2018, tempera)

This plangent piece returns to the mysterious territory between landscape and archetype with a tempera work that draws on the delicate landscape palette of Poussin, the bold, furious brushwork of Jackson Pollock and the famous memento mori hidden in Holbein’s The Ambassadors. Et In Arcadia Ego responds to the theme of a morally ambiguous garden…

Archetypes 2: Titan (2018, watercolour)

This dramatic piece develops the artist’s characteristic ‘impasto’ technique, creating light by working into the surface to render rough areas of paint smooth and lucent, creating areas of a dreamlike violet within the energetic, almost violent textures of clashing and blending purple and gold. The Titans, gigantic children of earth and heaven, rebelled against their…

[VISITING ARTIST] The Mower Against Gardens (2018, acrylic)

This striking work by London-based artist Ariella Wolf was created using a brush formed of natural rosemary leaves. The paper was placed directly on grass in the open air within an urban park, before being strongly worked such that the paper has become heavily textured by the surface underneath. Coupled with the vivid greens and…