Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
The Rope Store Gallery, Quay Arts Newport, Isle of Wight
Reviewed by: Louise Thompson
Crossing the Solent from the fast, grey streets of Portsmouth to the relative calm of the scenic Isle of Wight is a good preparation for viewing Elaine McIntosh's 'The Art of Relaxation'. The Rope Store Gallery, sited in a complex of attractively renovated waterside buildings, with the Medina River flowing against the exterior of its wall, is an appropriate venue for works swimming with colour and layered with floating images.
Elaine McIntosh is an island-born painter who trained at Southampton and Central St Martins, and has exhibited work mainly in London, Southampton and on the island. She has spent the last thirteen years producing art whilst travelling extensively and studying meditation. In the last few years she has been based mainly on the island where she paints in an enviably large, almost hangar-like studio in a disused boat factory at Ventnor.
The works shown in the exhibition have been produced during the last three years and stem from her exploration into using meditation and physical awareness as part of a painting process that also employs a variety of media. Although the gallery space seemed relatively small for a substantial body of visually complex work, both the nature of the work itself and the hanging had achieved a balance between individual pieces.
On first entering I was aware of colour on white: vibrant splashes of exotic hues such as carmine, orange and turquoise, on swathes of softer blues and other pale, more opaque colours. Shapes and figurative elements, often relating to parts of the body, either weave around each other in their colourful two-dimensional space or are superimposed, fragmenting and combining unexpected images into visual suggestions of physical and mental sensations. In Wet Look, Peep and Pink Painting (Plink), delicately rendered outlined faces look, passively, into the painting through bands of strong colour whilst voyeuristic eyes peer through the splayed fingers of detached hands to engage the viewer.
Through the use of the gently extended hand motif, an image strongly suggestive of dance or controlled physical exercise, and the thoughtful application of colour and line, the feeling of calm and balanced movement is achieved in many of the works. At the same time being confronted by separated body parts, including many partially disguised or hidden eyes looking out at you, was mildly disconcerting. In the case of this artist's work, disembodiment of the human spirit is shown as being achieved by looking and moving through imagined layers, and breaking away from the dominance of the physical self.
Writer detail:
LOUISE THOMPSON
IS A SCULPTOR AND WRITER.
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