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ARS POETICA : THE SEA THE SEA
23RD APRIL UNTIL 17TH MAY
“Then I felt too that I might take this opportunity to tie up a few loose ends, only of course loose ends can never be properly tied, one is always producing new ones. Time, like the sea, unties all knots... Human arrangements are nothing but loose ends and hazy reckoning, whatever art may otherwise pretend in order to console us.”
Iris Murdoch, The Sea The Sea
Introduction
Gareth Edwards has lived in Cornwall for ten years after relocating from London to the remote area of Lamorna - a small wooded valley that leads to a cove in the far south west of England. This exhibition has been in gestation for that length of time.
Edwards began making, often heavily abstracted, paintings which drew inspiration from land and sea whilst still living in the city and working in a studio in East London, this development coincided with, and was perhaps a response to, the birth of his first child in 1996 For Edwards, these luminous paintings were a metaphor “for desire through space and a longing to be closer to the basic mechanics of life”. It was 5 years later that Edwards and his family made further steps.
‘The Sea The Sea’ by Iris Murdoch was cited by Edwards as one of the contributory inspirations for his migration. The novel tells the story of one man’s transformation of outlook on life having moved near the sea after withdrawing from an urbanized existence. Used to a life of commercial desire and artificial consideration, the sea is posited as a transformative metaphor through which the ego is diminished, humility is discerned and harmony with nature is re-established.
landscape painting has been largely marginalized in recent years, in favour of an urban-centric imperative. These poetic paintings, which embrace the phenomenological, physical experience of the sea - set out to establish the profound and natural relationship between art and nature. The theme is worthy of reflection in the 21st Century - anyone who has stood and observed the ocean will know that it is perpetual. These paintings are a principled response to any prejudice against this art form; the muse is eternal, whilst concerns of its suitability as relevant sustenance in a contemporary art world can only be discarded as temporary.
These are paintings that are born in part from an instinctive meditation on the experience of the natural and the elemental, and evoke that in the mind of the viewer. Yet one is also struck by synthetics embellishment of some of the mark-making which are clearly strategic as opposed to intuitive. They are a graphic reminder of the human hand. One contemplates such flourishes; poetic text in the painting ‘Emotional Weather’ or dots in ‘A Thousand Black Suns Rise Above the Ocean’. Indicating both harmony and discordancy. Illustrating a trace back to Edwards metropolitan origins and connection with an inherent urban aesthetic. These paintings deal with the modern dichotomy of our connection with the natural world. A balanced meditation on the primitive and progressive aspects of our humanity set against the eternal backdrop of the ocean.
Joseph Clarke. 2011
