Happy New Year.

In these times I feel very grateful to everyone who has messaged the gallery with good wishes.

I very much miss seeing visitors in the gallery.

While the gallery is closed we will attempt to find another way to let people see the artists’ work – only then do we complete the circle.

We are up for ‘try-outs’ (within limits!!) as the couriers are working, and of course we will attempt to ensure as much new work as possible may be viewed online.

I am excited by what we have to come this year. There will be a digital edition of the London Art Fair from 20 January until 31 January.

As usual we will be previewing work that will be part of exhibitions later in 2021.

A major part of our selection will involve work in our next solo exhibition, which will be a solo show by Nathan Ford:

Nathan Ford, Flock V, Oil on Birch Panel 122 x 170 cm. Sold

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is Nathan’s 10th solo show with us and we will be releasing a short film by Mike Pitts to coincide with the show.
Mike has worked extensively with David Attenborough and has two Emmy Awards (for Life of Plants and Blue Planet).

Here he is filming Nathan in front of one of Nathan’s new paintings. I am not sure Nathan is looking forward to the searching interrogation of the interviewer…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our presentation for the London Art Fair always includes work by Anna Gillespie:

Anna Gillespie, Broken Ring, Bronze Figures (unique), Found Steel, Sold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of course Helen Simmonds:

Helen Simmonds, Plates and Roses, Oil on Board 46 x 71 cm. Sold

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had forgotten this poem, which came into my mind in the last few days. The denouement is so good.

I do not want to be reflective any more
Envying and despising unreflective things
Finding pathos in dogs and undeveloped handwriting
And young girls doing their hair and all the castles of sand
Flushed by the children’s bedtime, level with the shore.

The tide comes in and goes out again, I do not want
To be always stressing either its flux or its permanence,
I do not want to be a tragic or philosophic chorus
But to keep my eye only on the nearer future
And after that let the sea flow over us.

Come then all of you, come closer, form a circle,
Join hands and make believe that joined
Hands will keep away the wolves of water
Who howl along our coast. And be it assumed
That no one hears them among the talk and laughter.
Louis MacNiece, ‘Wolves’

Perhaps what lead to thinking about the Louis MacNiece poem was a Heaney poem I have quoted recently:

History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.
Seamus Heaney ‘Chorus from the Cure at Troy’

And finally…

With apologies for such an Irish or Anglo-Irish saturation of quotes, the first extract is part of the inspiration for the second.
And ‘you can always, always rely on W.B. Yeats’ (my mother).

The seeds of life—
fiery is their force, divine their birth, but they
are weighed down by the bodies’ ills or dulled
by earthly limbs and flesh that’s born for death.
That is the source of all men’s fears and longings,
joys and sorrows, nor can they see the heavens’ light,
shut up in the body’s tomb, a prison dark and deep.
Virgil’s Aeneid VI:843-848

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
WB Yeats. ‘Sailing to Byzantium’, verse IV

And with such a heavy Greek/Byzantine flavour thread through all the verses…
Here is a little reader from Crete:

Reading Minotaur IV, Ed. of 15 73 x 30 x 47 cm. £12,600

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For details of forthcoming shows, or any other relevant matters, please message me.

Aidan Quinn