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Gimpel Fils: Albert Irvin - Inextinguishable Gallery 2: Hannah Maybank - works on paper - 11 Nov 2010 to 15 Jan 2011 Current Exhibition |
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Albert Irvin Inextinguishable 11 November 2010 � 15 January 2011 Private view: Thursday 11 November, 6-8pm Gimpel Fils is delighted to present an exhibition of new paintings by the incomparable Albert Irvin. These paintings, all created during the past year, are both a continuation and a development of the themes and meditations that have been preoccupying Irvin throughout his lengthy career. Taking its title from Symphony No. 4 �The Inextinguishable�, by Danish composer Carl Nielsen, this new body of work is testament to Irvin�s unwavering belief in art�s centrality to life. The impact of music on Irvin�s belief system has been previously documented; his admiration of Alfred Brendel and Harrison Birtwhistle is well known, for example. In this exhibition however, he has turned to the sentiments expressed in Nielsen�s �The Inextinguishable�. Inextinguishable, translated from the Danish �uudslukkelige� which can also be interpreted as �life-force�, relates to that which is inextinguishable: life; energy; spirit. Written during 1916 in the midst of the First World War, Nielsen wished to express �the elemental will to live�. A statement by Nielsen has been at the forefront of Irvin�s mind recently: �The most elementary aspects of music are Light, Life and Motion. � It�s all those things that have Will, and the Craving for Life that cannot be suppressed, that I�ve wanted to depict�. Irvin suggests that if we replace the word �music� with �painting�, we might be closer to understanding what he is trying to convey in these vibrant and energetic works. Life, expressed by colour, whirls, dances, and skips across the surface of the canvases in rhythmic and overlapping forms that are punctuated by bursts of radiating light. Within the continuous motion, grids and multifoils structure the canvases, celebrating life�s miraculous beauty. What these paintings tell us is that whether forcefully or peacefully, art - and hence the artist - must continually strive and embrace life. Since the 1950s Albert Irvin has been exploring the possibilities of paint, colour and the non-figurative form. Born in London in 1922, Irvin attended Northampton School of Art from 1940-1941, when he began his service in the Royal Air Force. In 1946 he resumed his studies at Goldsmiths, where he subsequently became a tutor. In 1982 Gimpel Fils held its first solo exhibition of his work, and we have exhibited his work regularly ever since. The Serpentine Gallery held a major retrospective of his work in 1990, and Irvin was elected a Royal Academician in 1998 and an honorary member of the Royal West of England Academy in 1999. His work was most recently seen in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and a major retrospective exhibition of his prints will be on display at Kings Place Gallery, London, 3 December - 24 December 2010. His catalogue raisonn�, �Albert Irvin: The Complete Prints� was published by Lund Humphries in October 2010. Hannah Maybank works on paper 11 November 2010 � 15 January 2011 Private view: 11th November, 6-8pm To draw a tree. To draw a tree is a kind of waiting. Waiting for the space it occupies to change. Time passes as you draw. But too slowly to reveal the minute changes the tree is undergoing. Most trees in England are timepieces, deciduously telling us the season and signalling the next stage in our quartered year. There�s comfort in their silent concord with each other and the earth, in the visible cycles we rely on. It�s this latency of waiting and changing that Hannah Maybank�s work embodies, both narratively and formally. Her paintings and drawings are representations of trees and the breakdown of that representation into what trees do to sky, to human scale, to our understanding of depth of field and to our awareness of nature�s cyclical returns. Cherry Smyth, �Hannah Maybank: Gathering Life�, in ArtSway�s New Forest Pavilion: a collateral event of the 53rd international art exhibition- la biennale di Venezia, ArtSway and Text +Work, 2009 Following her acclaimed participation in ArtSway�s New Forest Pavilion at the Venice Biennale last year, this exhibition will chart the development of Hannah Maybank�s shellac ink drawings, depicting coniferous and deciduous trees. Including works made since 2007, the exhibition incorporates two recent large scale works, The Guardians and Double Topper. Hannah Maybank is currently the recipient of the prestigious Artist Fellowship scheme at the Berwick Gymnasium Gallery in Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland. As part of the Fellowship, she is living and working in the historic border town over the winter months of 2010, and is producing a new body of work in response to the location. Works created during Maybank�s residency will be exhibited in late 2011. |
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