This visceral contribution to the Parliament of Fowles series vividly captures the chaos and violence of a sparrowhawk’s abrupt descent among its prey. The hawk is barely outlined and seems both lightning-fast and larger than life, its wings seeming to loom and threaten as much as beak and claw, while the mix of red 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:…
London I & II (2018, mixed media)
London I: Soho Square London II: Primrose Hill This mixed media diptych represents a departure from more lyrical and myth-inspired recent work. The unsettling red, black and pink palette suggests a city a long way from peaceful, while the scribbled-over flower motifs and lonely dabs of green struggling to be seen in Soho Square speak…
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…
Sonnet 65 (2018, performance)
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea But sad mortality o’er-sways their power How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days, When rocks impregnable are not…
[VISITING ARTIST] In The Beginning (2018, pencil on paper)
London artist Ben King’s longstanding interest in the ephemeral is captured here in the light application of line and colour, reminiscent of reflected light through stained glass: visible yet intangible, present yet fleeting, poetic and lyrical yet without substance. By restricting his use of colour to the three primaries he imbues his drawing with refreshing…
Parliament of Fowles 2: Rooks (2018, wax on paper)
In this lively evocation of a noisy, busy treetop rookery the ‘Parliament’ of the series title takes on a more localised meaning, as the collective noun for rooks (corvus frugilegus) is in fact a ‘Parliament’, referring to the folk myth that the birds hold communal court sessions to adjudicate on the theft by houseproud rooks…
[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…
[VISITING ARTIST] Piazza Comunale (2018, performance)
Anglo-Italian artist Olivia Passalenti developed this performance as part of the Grottamare summer residency programme. Inspired by the bustling, chaotic public life of a classical Italian piazza, the work explores the capacity of architecture to structure, constrain and still be overspilled by the always already excessive energy of human social interaction. During the performance the…
Parliament of Fowles 1: Cock Pheasant (2018, wax on paper)
In this series the artist steps away from her colour-rich watercolour and tempera work, developing an economic line and use of space to capture the energy and essence of bird life. Inspired by Chaucer’s famous poem, the series teases us with a palimpsest of meanings ascribed by our human culture to the species around us,…
Like It Was Done By A Toddler 
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