Richard Walker
dal 15/7/2003 al 23/8/2003
Segnalato da
15/7/2003
Richard Walker
Andrew Mummery Gallery, London
Returning consistently to direct observation, Walker has frequently depicted the immediate surroundings of his own studio. The present show is devoted to this subject matter, which at one level announces the self-reflexive nature of the artist's endeavour. These are works in which painting is seen in the process of painting itself.
The Andrew Mummery gallery is pleased to present for the first time a
significant group of new paintings by Richard Walker.
A highly respected Glasgow-based artist, Walker was among the first to sound
an alternative to the bombast of 1980s figuration, and he has steered a
cogent course for painting alongside the neo-conceptualism of many of his
contemporaries.
Returning consistently to direct observation, Walker has frequently depicted
the immediate surroundings of his own studio. The present show is devoted to
this subject matter, which at one level announces the self-reflexive nature
of the artist's endeavour. These are works in which painting is seen in the
process of painting itself. At the same time Walker's paintings explore the
'real' visible world, delighting in all its physical and metaphorical
complexity. Light itself, a perrennial concern for visual artists, is
profoundly important to these works - light and shadow revealing and
concealing objects, describing and obscuring the environment, orientating us
in space. Order and chaos, and the sometimes disturbing transitions from
recognisable identity to indeterminacy, are faced with a disabused (yet not
disillusioned) realism. Numerous art-historical precedents inform the work,
from Vermeer to Corot to Vuillard to Nicolas de Stael. The militantly modest
figuration of the American painter Fairfield Porter is an important affinity
for Walker.
In these recent paintings the artist makes a quiet, but resolute manifesto
for the continuing urgency of 'sur-le-motif' painting and the investigation
and celebration of what it is to be conscious in our world.
Richard Walker was born in Cumbernauld, Scotland in 1955. He studied at
Glasgow School of Art from 1973-77. Solo exhibitions have included those at
Berwick Gymnasium, Berwick upon Tweed (2000); the Talbot Rice Gallery,
Edinburgh (1999) and the Mappin Gallery, Sheffield (1996).
Co-inciding with Richard Walker's exhibition the gallery will be presenting
in it's project space a selection of works by Philip Akkerman, Mark Kennedy,
Jockum Nordstrm and Christopher Stevens.
For further information about both these exhibitions, please contact Andrew
Mummery on 020 7251 6265
Gallery open Tuesday - Saturday, 11am - 6pm
Private view: Wednesday 16 July, 6-8pm
ANDREW MUMMERY GALLERY
63 Compton Street, London EC1V 0BN
Tel: +44 (0)20 7251 6265. Fax: +44 (0)20 7251 5545