ARTLYST
Mystery of the Unfinished
Jude Montague
Alan Rankle, Claudia De Grandi, Stephen Newton, Matthew Radford and Suzie Zamit – Rogue Gallery
18 Feb – 26 Mar 2023
Over the road at Ray Gange’s new Rogue Gallery another exhibition which works with the idea of ‘unfinished’ was just going up. A select group of work by artists curated by Alan Rankle was being prepared to be hung. Artists exhibiting alongside Alan include Claudia De Grandi, Stephen Newton, Matthew Radford and Suzie Zamit. Sculptor Suzie Zamit came up with the title in a conversation with Alan about how the rough study may capture the essence of the artist vision.
This general idea applies differently for each artist. Stephen Newton’s thick impasto work focuses on empty space and interior objects and people who float in a thick earthy crust of paint. He is a thinker and educator considering psychoanalysis and psychometry of art and his work has been described as psycho-conceptual. A new artist to me, I was drawn into his spaces and the feelings of loss, disconnection, floating on the heavily painted background. I said to Ray that I thought he was a wonderful discovery for my eye and I appreciated the mental experience of gazing at his pieces. The colour palette is earthy and brown but also suggests the inner digestive works of the body. I feel something of bile, shit, and vomit in his choices of oches and venomous green. His work embodies, for me, something of the simple healing environments of hospital interiors although this is changing with the visual stimulus being brought into interiors through the introduction of art installations.
I was lucky enough to visit Suzie Zamit at her nearby studio to Norman Road just before the show and got to see her at work with her clay, building forms. We chatted and ate nuts as she worked and discussed her sculpture and the demands on the sculptor, financially and physically. Beautiful work is made from struggle and devotion. Also, the multiple commission takes its toll on time and energy. An artist in commercial work, whose skills are bought has to give over something of their life to others and cannot fully be led by their own desires. More solo and group exhibitions this year will enable her to spread out into new territory.
Charlotte Snook’s work lets the allure of the study shine through her renaissance oil studies. I feel myself in a heavenly boudoir of floating angels, naked buttocks, bedtime goings on in velvet, luxurious fabric, the illusion of grace and the magic of intimacy., Clouds, shadows, red velvet and the cyan fresh sky speaking through, this is a sensuous series of studies and embody the title of the show – unfinished. The bedroom door is open but our eyes are wide shut.
Matthew Radford’s work is reminiscent for me for years spent archiving film material for Reuters Television News. Crowd scenes, destroyed buildings, these are rendered beautifully in painterly expression. I appreciate an artist who works well with scale and the miniature crowd pieces are particularly enchanting Like a video scene, stare inside and join the people moving, breathing, running humming. I could be staring at raw footage from various war zones.
Claudia De Grandi’s storm pieces with the moon and sea are immersed in nature. People-less, animal-less they slip and roll and tug with forces of the environment. As someone who lives by the shore here in Hastings I imagine they are painted on the shoreline or walking there and bringing that experience back into the studio. The human fascination with the moon,the sky rock that pulls the tide, is forcefully present. Her subject, the cycle of time, the movement of plasma, the ever rolling world, this space-ball.
Alan’s own work has something in common with Charlotte’s.He explores issues through landscape art. He manipulates styles from diverse periods but there is a dominant influence of 18th century and renaissance light and design – the way he paints trees, the way he paints light. His work is very enjoyable and uplifting despite dealing with social issues, and his style latches onto the uplifting effect of light and the way oils bring that otherworldly experience well to a landscape. The power of Poussin’s travellers resting, rocks and ‘those trees mixes in with other post-modern influences, using style to encourage attention shifts.