Graeme Todd
dal 7/1/2003 al 15/2/2003
Segnalato da
7/1/2003
Graeme Todd
Andrew Mummery Gallery, London
This exhibition is comprised predominantly of paintings made over the last year. After first visiting the Klontel Valley in Switzerland in 2001, Todd drew inspiration from the resplendent peaks, lakes and valleys of the landscape in the Canton of Glarus.
The Andrew Mummery Gallery is pleased to announce our third exhibition of the work of Graeme Todd, and his first in London since the success of his solo show, Space is Deep, at the Kunsthaus Glarus in Switzerland in 2002.
Lying somewhere between the realms of nature, memory and illusion, Graeme Todd's paintings fuse meticulous drawing with layers of incandescent coloured brushstrokes, and translucent glazes of poured varnish. Linear and planar elements are intricately collaged from a diverse and informed array of both everyday and art historical sources, from postcards, cuttings and tourist souvenirs, to the great Romantic paintings of the German masters and East Asian ink drawings. For Todd, landscape remains a place for the imagination, a quiet reflection on how fragmented memories may coalesce and metamorphose into a new and cohesive whole. From figuration to abstraction, from finite to infinite, Todd creates both a seductive materiality and rich complexity of spatial perception.
This exhibition is comprised predominantly of paintings made over the last year. After first visiting the Klontel Valley in Switzerland in 2001, Todd drew inspiration from the resplendent peaks, lakes and valleys of the landscape in the Canton of Glarus. Nowhere is this more beautifully expressed than in the centrepiece of the show, It is so Endless, 2002, a painting made in situ at the Kunsthaus Glarus prior to his exhibition there.
Here, using only the sparest traces of felt-tip and ink line, Todd draws the craggy mountain peaks, lakes and hillside trees into a composition of perfect balance, invoking the great sublime landscapes of Casper David Friedrich. From the essential structure, Todd builds distance: strata of colour-field brushstrokes, glittering infusions of colour, fluid, expansive line, and abstracted blocks of paint that at the same time reveal and erase the drawing beneath.
This tension through opposition is further refined with paintings such as Ruins of Rabenstein, 2002, where the layers are further compressed into a panoply of reflection and inflection. Todd references this to the process of crystallization, creating a magical, frozen world where dynamism is counterbalanced by an innate and timeless sense of stillness, calm and contemplation.
Graeme Todd was born in Glasgow in 1962 and studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee. He now lives and works in East Lothian.
Forthcoming exhibitions:
Peter Lynch: 25 February - 29 March 2003
Louise Hopkins: 2 April - 3 May 2003
Andrew Mummery Gallery
63 Compton Street, London EC1V 0BN
Tel: +44 (0)20 7251 6265