Art Space Gallery serves up " STEW "

Tuesday, 22 January 2008 00:03

LONDON - The eight artists in the show work in a great variety of ways but all link the meaning of their work to its physicality and its relationship to the space that contains it.  On exhibition at Art Space Gallery 25 January through 23 February, 2008.
 
There was no fixed concept behind the starting point for STEW; it is not an illustration of a theory or concept but more a movable feast. All the artists here relate to the idea of duality and reflection, a bipolar relationship between material and meaning but with a civilised route of discovery where what is actually manifested is of both formal and material interest, rich in references, and is a constructive approach to contemporary art and its community.
 
The neo modernist stubborn games of Eric Bainbridge, the joyous materiality of Phyllida Barlow, the removed world of Kaye Donachie, the rhythmic revelations of Noel Forster, the bulbous clumpy Neil Jeffries, the 'apocalyptic' power of Dawn Mellor, the effusions of Paul Richards and my own Andrew Stahl's contradictory artifice.

Noel Forster sadly died in early December 2007; but his work will be included in the exhibition.
 
Art Space Gallery was founded in 1986 by Michael and Oya Richardson and soon came to be recognised as one of London's foremost venues dedicated to showing and promoting serious painting. In 1993 the art critic and writer Keith Patrick, then chairman of the British section of the International Association of Art Critics wrote that:

"Art Space Gallery is one of those rare galleries which spontaneously attract the interest of artists and many distinguished names are frequent visitors to its exhibitions. This is even more remarkable given that the gallery is situated in a quiet corner of Islington and not in the commercial centre of Bond Street.

We may take this ground-level support as an indication of the success of the gallery's policy. Over a period when the art market has been particularly prone to the vagaries of fashion Art Space has followed its own instincts. Above all its directors - Michael and Oya Richardson - have maintained a commitment to painterly figuration and have come to identify the gallery with a direction which has remained significant in British art for forty years. It is to their credit that they have extended our knowledge of the contemporary end of that tradition.."

Since then the gallery has grown along with many of it's earlier artists to become one of London's leading galleries for contemporary painting where the work of young artists can be seen along with those of established reputations.  Visit Art Space Gallery at : www.artspacegallery.co.uk