MOSTYN OPEN 18 – artists announced

MOSTYN OPEN 18

18th January – 14th April 2013

MOSTYN | Wales is delighted to announce the participating artists for MOSTYN Open 18. They are, Jacqueline Bebb, Jane Bustin, Cath Campbell, Tomas Chaffe, Danilo Correale, Sean Edwards, Alex Farrar, Claudio Gobbi, Gareth Griffith, The Hut Project, Yuki Kishino, Lawrence Leaman, James Lewis, Stuart Middleton, Edward Morgan, Philip Newcombe, John Henry Newton, Laura Reeves, Zhao Renhui, Hua Kuan Chen Sai, Chris Shaw-Hughes, Nikolaus Schletterer, Mathew Tom, Alaena Turner, Gwyn Williams, and Jesse Wine.

Beloved by Jane Bustin

Since its inception in 1989, the Open has functioned as a call-out to artists of any age and residing place to enter, with an exhibition of the selected artworks taking place at MOSTYN, and a prize of £10,000 awarded to a single artist or collective.

While continuing in this tradition, the 18th edition will also bring a fundamental addition. A prize of £1000 will be given to the Peopleʼs Choice, which will be determined by the artist who receives the most votes from the visiting public during the exhibitionʼs run. In doing so, the questions that will be raised, and central to this renewed edition, are: How do we examine and judge artwork? What criteria do we bring to perceiving, interpreting and understanding artwork? What really makes our favourite?

The selection of artists for MOSTYN Open 18 represents the rise of MOSTYNʼs international profile and the significance of the Open itself, with participants from Austria, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, Singapore, as well as the UK.

MOSTYN Open 18 has been selected by Adam Carr, Curator of MOSTYN; Alfredo Cramerotti, Director of MOSTYN; Ryan Gander, and you, the visiting audience, for the People’s Choice.

MOSTYN | CYMRU | WALES is Wales’s leading public contemporary art gallery and receives financial support from the Arts Council of Wales, Conwy County Borough Council Art Service and Llandudno Town Council. Situated in the north Wales coastal town of Llandudno it reopened in May 2010 following an award winning major expansion project designed by Ellis Williams Architects. Mostyn Gallery Ltd is a registered charity trading as MOSTYN. MOSTYN is part of the Plus TATE network of galleries.

MOSTYN, 12 Vaughan Street, Llandudno, Conwy, LL30 1AB +44(0)1492 879201 www.mostyn.org

Open Daily 10.30am – 5.00pm ADMISSION FREE

For more information or to request images please contact Lin Cummins, Audience Relations Manager at MOSTYN on +44 (0)1492 879201 or email lin@mostyn.org

MEDIA RELEASE November 2012

Contact for Jane Bustin – see www.janebustin.com 

Jane Bustin in the Jerwood Drawing Prize and John Moores Painting Prize

sacrificed to veil – sacrifiés pour voiler, 2011 by Jane Bustin. 
oil on muslin, oak and gesso
200cm x 150cm (overall wallspace)

Jane Bustin has work featuring in the Jerwood Drawing Prize and John Moores Painting Prize – both opening this week.

Jerwood Drawing Prize 2012

12 SEPTEMBER – 28 OCTOBER 2012

The Jerwood Drawing Prize 2012 is the largest and longest running annual open exhibition for drawing in the UK. Judged by an independent panel of selectors; Stephen Coppel, Curator of the Modern Collection, Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum; Kate Macfarlane, Co-Director of The Drawing Room, London; and Lisa Milroy, Artist and Head of Graduate Painting, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, the Prize aims to explore and celebrate the diversity, excellence and range of current drawing practice in the UK.

From a submission of almost 3,000 entries, the selectors have brought together an exhibition of 78 works from 73 artists. The shortlist includes established artists as well as relative newcomers and students fresh from art college. The selected works will be exhibited at JVA at Jerwood Space, London from 12 September – 28 October 2012, and then tour to venues across the UK including the new Jerwood Gallery, Hastings and mac, Birmingham.

The artists short-listed for the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2012 are: Katie Aggett, Judith Alder, Linda Antalova, Aglaé Bassens, Meghana Bisineer, Matthew Burrows, Malina Busch, Jane Bustin, Elizabeth Butterworth, Heeseung Choi, Alexander Costello, Toni Davey, Jeffrey Dennis, Jane Dixon, Paul Eachus, Mark Evans, Marisa J. Futernick, Matteo Fuzzi, Richard Galloway, Stefan Gant, Pippa Gatty, Albert Geere, Karolina Glusiec, Margarita Gluzberg, Thomas Gosebruch, Beatrice Haines, Susie Hamilton, Tom Hammick, Jane Harris, Oona Hassim, Greg Hayman, Jefford Horrigan, Joanne Hummel-Newell, Abigail Hunt, Robin Jones, Kerstin Kartscher, Min Kim, Rebecca Kunzi, Nadine Mahoney, Sam Mould, Kyounghee Noh, Nengi Omuku, Simon Parish, Sarah Pettitt, Kasper Pincis, Kathy Prendergast, Carl Randall, Howard Read, Frances Richardson, Ishai Rimmer, Fiona Robinson, Daniela Sarigu, Katy Shepherd, Ruth Simons, Simson & Volley, Eiko Soga, Bada Song, Sarah Spackman, Jenny Steele, Maaike Anne Stevens, Rebecca Swindell, Eleanor Taylor, Shelley Theodore, Mathew Tom, Amikam Toren, Felicity Truscott, Andrew Vass, Julia Vogl, Sarah Kate Wilson, Ching Wong, Tanya Wood, William Wright, Aishan Yu.

http://jerwoodvisualarts.org/3095/Jerwood-Drawing-Prize-2010

John Moores Painting Prize 2012

First held in 1957, the John Moores Painting Prize is the UK’s best-known painting competition and is named after Sir John Moores (1896 – 1993), the founder of the prize. The competition culminates in an exhibition held at the Walker Art Gallery every two years, which forms a key strand of the Liverpool Biennial.

The John Moores exhibition is held in partnership with the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition Trust, and although the appearance of each exhibition changes, the principles remain constant: to support artists and to bring to Liverpool the best contemporary painting from across the UK.

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/johnmoores/

The following works will be displayed in the John Moores 2012 exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery, opening on 15 September 2012.

Eve Ackroyd

Dead Man

Henny Acloque

277

Kelly Best

That place between 11 and 12

Biggs & Collings

The Greater Light

Katrina Blannin

Pink

James Bloomfield

Collateral Damage – The Killing Jar – 14.I.2012

Hannah Brown

Time Hangs Heavy 3

Jane Bustin

- sacrificed

- to veil

- sacrifiés
- pour voiler

Graham Chorlton

Edge of Town

Wayne Clough

Down the Acapulco

Julie Cockburn

The Field

Paul Collinson

Temple of Ancient Virtue

Andrew Cranston

Thinking inside the box

Theo Cuff

Untitled

Cullinan Richards

Collapse into Abstract (black)

Bernat Daviu

Overall Paintings

David Dipré

Self Portrait on White Ground.

Nathan Eastwood

A Man after Ilya Repin’s Own Heart

Liz Elton

Twisted

Oscar Godfrey

Mineral 9

Vincent Hawkins

The House

Bé van der Heide

In the Desert

Rae Hicks

Late Summer Mirage

John Holland

Home VII

Kevin Hutcheson

Study

Jarik Jongman

Waiting room (1)

Laura Keeble

“I’d like to teach the world to sing!”

Robin Kirsten

Path of Whistlers

Laura Lancaster

Untitled

Brendan Lancaster

Wet Casements

Ian Law

M is many

Dominic Lewis

The Auction

Peter Liversidge

Proposal for the Jury of the John Moores Painting Prize 2012

Angela Lizoń

Made in Taiwan

Elizabeth Magill

Sighting

Danny Markey

Traffic Island in the Snow

Enzo Marra

Monet

Rui Matsunaga

Monkey

Onya McCausland

Iron Hill

Dougal McKenzie

Otl’s Gift (The Honeymoon of the Mechanical Bride)

Damien Meade

Talcum

Sonia Morange

Poncho

Stephen Nicholas

Gallery

Pat O’Connor

Black

Jay Oliver

Outside Toilet

Dan Perfect

Future Sun

Oliver Perkins

DEAD RUBBER

Virginia Phongsathorn

Comma (Test Piece for an Eye Break)

Sarah Pickstone

Stevie Smith and the Willow

Tom Pitt

Steps, Forest Rec.

Kevin J Pocock

Brutal Facade

Sarah Poots

Plaza

Narbi Price

Untitled Kerbstone Painting (MJK)

James Ryan

Untitled

Andrew Seto

Fruit Loop

André Stitt

The Little Summer of St. Michael

Trevor Sutton

Irish Painting (for Jack)

Emma Talbot

The Good Terrorists

Amikam Toren

Armchair Painting – Untitled (The Unthinkable)

Matt Welch

Painting of IKEA shelf brackets arranged in such a way as to signify towards IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad’s involvement with Nazism and Swedish Nationalism, distracted by varying levels of perspectival depth, variations in colour and visually dominated by some form of unknown dark oval in the background

Ian Whittlesea

Studio Painting – Agnes Martin

Thomas M Wright

Inherent Omniscience (Second Version)

More info:

http://www.janebustin.com

http://www.artprojx.com

Anatole Notes project at Testbed – Sept 2012 images

http://www.janebustin.com/gallery/

http://canberracontemporaryartspace.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/and-the-wiiner-was/

Anthony Rudolf on Jane Bustin’s Anatole Notes

beloved v
black ink on oak and paper, 2012, 57cm x 18cm
Jane Bustin

DRAFT TEXT FOR JANE BUSTIN
Anthony Rudolf

What could be less verbal than a Jane Bustin painting?

What could be more verbal than a Mallarmé poem?

“One does not write with ideas but with words”, Mallarmé said to Degas, who fancied himself as a poet and had plenty of ideas.

As Borges might have said, we would expect the first livre d’artiste to have been created by Mallarmé (as translator) and Manet: Poe’s ‘Raven’, and we would be right.

Let me rephrase my first sentence: not what could be less verbal but what could be more silent than a Jane Bustin painting? After all, Debussy’s La Mer is as wordless as a Bustin painting. Silent it is not.

(Debussy set one of Mallarmé’s most significant poems, ‘L’Après-midi d’un faune’, to music. Mallarmé told Degas: “I thought I had already set it to music”).

My answer to the question posed above — what could be more silent than a Jane Bustin painting? — is a dead child whose absence his poet father commemorates, that “absence [which] is condensed presence” (the phrase is from a letter of Emily Dickinson, a poet well worth reading “against” Mallarmé).

The dead child is Anatole Mallarmé, whom Jane Bustin too commemorates and whose existence breathes into, inspires, Jane Bustin’s paintings, via a heart-rending posthumously published poem.

It is neither paradoxical nor ironic that Jane Bustin depends so heavily on words during the gestation of her work exhibited at Test-tube. Goya went further: he included words inside the visual image. (There is no artist more freighted with words than Kitaj, and I’m talking about his paintings and prints, not his writings.)

Mallarmé would have reacted to these paintings with silence. He was always eloquent.

By Anthony Rudolf 2012

Born in London in 1942, Anthony Rudolf has two children and two grandchildren. He is the author of books of literary criticism (on Primo Levi, Piotr Rawicz and others), autobiography (The Arithmetic of Memory) and poetry (The Same River Twice and collaborations with artists), and translator of books of poetry from French (Bonnefoy, Vigée, Jabès), Russian (Vinokourov and Tvardovsky) and other languages. He has edited various anthologies. His essay on R.B. Kitaj was published by the National Gallery in 2001, and he has published essays on other painters. He is Paula Rego’s partner and main male model. He has completed a volume of short stories and is now at work on two new memoirs. His reviews, articles, poems, translations, obituaries and interviews with writers have appeared in numerous journals. Rudolf is an occasional broadcaster on radio and television and founder of Menard Press. After a lifetime of uninvolving day jobs, he became Visiting Lecturer in Arts and Humanities at London Metropolitan University (2000-2003) and Royal Literary Fund fellow at the Universities of Hertfordshire and Westminster (2003-2008). In 2004, he was appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture and, in 2005, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

—

Anatole Notes (part 1) by Jane Bustin
with
Les Mystères du Château de Dé by Man Ray presented by Artprojx

at
Testbed 1
33 Parkgate Road, Battersea, London SW11 4NP
(Next to Royal College of Art – Howie Street)
Fri/Sat/Sun 11am – 6pm daily
Closes Sunday 2 September 2012.

Info/map/images/updates http://davidgryn.wordpress.com

The Anatole Notes project consists of assembled groupings of paintings, objects, paper and letterpress text. Each assemblage reflects on the unfinished fragmented poems ‘Pour un Tombeau d’Anatole’ by Stephane Mallarmé (1879), ‘a tomb for Anatole’ translated by Paul Auster (1983). These fragmented phrases are Mallarmé’s attempt to come to terms with the death of his eight year old son Anatole. The sound and the visual arrangement of Mallarmé’s poems were as important as the meaning. His most famous poem ‘un coup de dés’ was a major influence on hypertext and has been the subject matter for many artists including Man Ray, Marcel Broodthaers etc.

Bustin’s reflections on his texts attempt to combine the written words with visual equivalents to reveal the expansive meaning of the text. Each work consists of three or four painted objects arranged on the wall and floor; they are made of various materials e.g. wood, linen, paper, metal, oil paint and readymade chairs. The Mallarmé text has been hand letter-pressed onto paper or linen by New North Press. See http://www.janebustin.com

This series has works that feature in the John Moores Painting Prize and Jerwood Drawing Prize, both opening over the next few weeks.

Contact: David Gryn david@artprojx.com +447711127848 http://www.artprojx.com

Press info, pricelist, images, more information all available on request.

Venue info and directions: http://www.thedoodlebar.com

Jane Bustin – Anatole Notes opens at Testbed on Wed 29 Aug

malade au printemps 2011 – Jane Bustin
oil on hessian and oak, japanese paper, letterpress and chair 2010

Private View: Wednesday 29 August 2012 6-8pm

Anatole Notes (part 1) by Jane Bustin 
with
Les Mystères du Château de Dé by Man Ray presented by Artprojx

Testbed 1 
33 Parkgate Road, Battersea, London SW11 4NP
29 August – 2 September 2012. 11am – 6pm daily

RSVP events@artprojx.com

The Anatole Notes project consists of assembled groupings of paintings, objects, paper and letterpress text. Each assemblage reflects on the unfinished fragmented poems ‘Pour un Tombeau d’Anatole’ by Stephane Mallarmé (1879), ‘a tomb for Anatole’ translated by Paul Auster (1983). These fragmented phrases are Mallarmé’s attempt to come to terms with the death of his eight year old son Anatole. The sound and the visual arrangement of Mallarmé’s poems were as important as the meaning. His most famous poem ‘un coup de dés’ was a major influence on hypertext and has been the subject matter for many artists including Man Ray, Marcel Broodthaers etc.

Bustin’s reflections on his texts attempt to combine the written words with visual equivalents to reveal the expansive meaning of the text. Each work consists of three or four painted objects arranged on the wall and floor; they are made of various materials e.g. wood, linen, paper, metal, oil paint and readymade chairs. The Mallarmé text has been hand letter-pressed onto paper or linen by New North Press.

the last flowers / les dernieres fleurs
oil on wood, linen and letterpress 2010 by Jane Bustin

“Unusually serious, yet mesmerisingly beautiful, with a deftness of painting and aesthetic balance, Bustin is an artist’s artist, and has a intense quality and master touch. Avowedly not for the minimalist purists, like most of her work, each painting tells a story, it just requires the audience participation to look and realise they are seeing the pure distillation of a concept, an idea, a poetic phrase, a musical note. We expect so much to be done for us with our visual culture, but here Bustin, as ever, makes us particiapte in exploring our language of looking.” Artprojx Review

TIME OUT

FAD

Other Anatole Notes works by Jane Bustin have been selected for the John Moores Painting Prize 2012 and the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2012. http://www.janebustin.com

Contact: David Gryn david@artprojx.com +447711127848 http://www.artprojx.com
Press info, pricelist, images, more information all available on request.

Venue info and directions: http://www.thedoodlebar.com
Updates at http://davidgryn.wordpress.com

Anatole Notes by Jane Bustin, installation view at Testbed1

silence (il pardonne) iii – Jane Bustin 2012

Jane Bustin: Anatole Notes at Testbed 1 – Opening Weds 29 August 6-8pm

Private View: Wednesday 29 August 2012 6-8pm

Anatole Notes (part 1) by Jane Bustin 
with
Les Mystères du Château de Dé by Man Ray presented by Artprojx

Testbed 1 
33 Parkgate Road, Battersea, London SW11 4NP
29 August – 2 September 2012. 11am – 6pm daily

RSVP events@artprojx.com

The Anatole Notes project consists of assembled groupings of paintings, objects, paper and letterpress text. Each assemblage reflects on the unfinished fragmented poems ‘Pour un Tombeau d’Anatole’ by Stephane Mallarmé (1879), ‘a tomb for Anatole’ translated by Paul Auster (1983). These fragmented phrases are Mallarmé’s attempt to come to terms with the death of his eight year old son Anatole. The sound and the visual arrangement of Mallarmé’s poems were as important as the meaning. His most famous poem ‘un coup de dés’ was a major influence on hypertext and has been the subject matter for many artists including Man Ray, Marcel Broodthaers etc.

Bustin’s reflections on his texts attempt to combine the written words with visual equivalents to reveal the expansive meaning of the text. Each work consists of three or four painted objects arranged on the wall and floor; they are made of various materials e.g. wood, linen, paper, metal, oil paint and readymade chairs. The Mallarmé text has been hand letter-pressed onto paper or linen by New North Press.

“Unusually serious, yet mesmerisingly beautiful, with a deftness of painting and aesthetic balance, Bustin is an artist’s artist, and has a intense quality and master touch. Avowedly not for the minimalist purists, like most of her work, each painting tells a story, it just requires the audience participation to look and realise they are seeing the pure distillation of a concept, an idea, a poetic phrase, a musical note. We expect so much to be done for us with our visual culture, but here Bustin, as ever, makes us particiapte in exploring our language of looking.” Artprojx Review

Other Anatole Notes works by Jane Bustin have been selected for the John Moores Painting Prize 2012 and the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2012. http://www.janebustin.com

Contact: David Gryn david@artprojx.com +447711127848 http://www.artprojx.com
Press info, pricelist, images, more information all available on request.

Venue info and directions: http://www.thedoodlebar.com
Updates at http://davidgryn.wordpress.com

Anatole Notes (part 1) by Jane Bustin – press release

– sacrificed
- to veil
- sacrifiés
- pour voiler

Anatole Notes (part 1) by Jane Bustin

with

Les Mystères du Château de Dé by Man Ray

presented by Artprojx

Testbed 1

33 Parkgate Road, Battersea, London SW11 4NP

29 August – 2 September 2012. 11am – 6pm daily

Private View: Wednesday 29 August. 6 – 8pm. 

RSVP events@artprojx.com

PRESS RELEASE

The Anatole Notes project consists of assembled groupings of paintings, objects, paper and letterpress text. Each assemblage reflects on the unfinished fragmented poems ‘Pour un Tombeau d’Anatole’ by Stephane Mallarmé (1879), ‘a tomb for Anatole’ translated by Paul Auster (1983). These fragmented phrases are Mallarmé’s attempt to come to terms with the death of his eight year old son Anatole. The sound and the visual arrangement of Mallarmé’s poems were as important as the meaning. His most famous poem ‘un coup de dés’ was a major influence on hypertext and has been the subject matter for many artists including Man Ray, Marcel Broodthaers.

Bustin’s reflections on his texts attempt to combine the written words with visual equivalents to reveal the expansive meaning of the text. Each work consists of three or four painted objects arranged on the wall and floor; they are made of various materials e.g. wood, linen, paper, metal, oil paint and readymade chairs. The Mallarmé text has been hand letter-pressed onto paper or linen by New North Press. The use of the architecture and the derelict state of the exhibition space at Testbed, echoes the emptiness and barren nature of the Anatole texts.

Artprojx presents: Les Mystères du Château de Dé, 1929, film 35mm by Man Ray. 25 mins (continuous screening as part of the Anatole Notes exhibition throughout the day).

The longest of Man Ray’s films, Les Mystères du Château de Dé, follows a pair of travelers on a journey from Paris to the Villa Noailles in Hyères, built by the architect Robert Mallet-Stevens with a cubist garden designed by Gabriel Guevrekian. This modernist collaboration was made as an architectural document and inspired by Mallarmé’s poem ‘Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard’.

Jane Bustin has been selected for the 2012 John Moores Painting Prize and the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2012. Bustin has been in numerous group exhibitions including Kettles Yard Cambridge, Ferens Museum (Hull), Southampton City Art Gallery, Djanogly Gallery (Nottingham), Royal Academy (London) and recently at the B55 Gallery (Budapest). Bustin has had solo shows at The Eagle Gallery (London), Artprojx Space (London) and The British Library (London). Her work is in several collections including V&A Museum (London), Yale Center USA, Ferens Museum (Hull). http://www.janebustin.com

Contact: David Gryn david@artprojx.com +447711127848 http://www.artprojx.com

Press info, pricelist, images, more information all available on request

Venue info and directions: http://www.thedoodlebar.com/

Image:

- sacrificed
- to veil

- sacrifiés
- pour voiler
by Jane Bustin

at John Moores Painting Prize 2012 

and other Anatole Notes works at Jerwood Drawing prize

Back and Forth – opening Budapest 16 Feb – featuring Bustin, Callery, Davey, Gotz, Jovanovics, Keseru, Smith, Thompson

BACK AND FORTH

8 artists from London

private view: Thursday 16th February, 19.00

B55 Gallery, 1055 – Hungary, Budapest, Balaton u.4

exhibition on view until 17th of March, 2012

JANE BUSTIN / SIMON CALLERY / ROSE DAVEY / LOTHAR GÖTZ / TAMÁS JOVÁNOVICS / KÁROLY KESERÜ / DILLWYN SMITH / ESTELLE THOMPSON

www.b55galeria.hu / art@b55galeria.hu / +3613541350 /

open: Thu-Fri: 12.00-18.00, Sat 10.00 -13.00, Sun, Mon: closed

http://www.janebustin.com

Back and Forth – Catalogue essay by Estelle Thompson / Tamás Jovánovics

Back and forth — there is a lot of back and forth in making an exhibition happen. In a group show there are conversations from artist to artist, then from artists to venue and back again. In this instance there is the moving of work and artists from one country to another, and back again. But the ‘real‘ back and forth is in the making of paintings, in the studio, their evolution — the thinking. There is also the relationship of painting to its history and to its future. Traveling back to Malevich’s ‘Black Square’ is much quoted right now yet it might equally mean looking much further back (or sideways even) whilst thinking about how to move on.

Our initial selection of artists for ‘Back and Forth’ relied on what could be called painters’ instinct. Without articulating our criteria, we knew instinctively, as painter/curators that these painters shared a fascination with, and respect for, the formal field (the area defined by the support) of the painting. Regardless of what is painted on it, a painting support is usually a rectangle, square, circle or oval — it is geometric. It is the geometry of this field that each of these artists, no matter what the mode of their articulation, obsessively activate. This ‘thinking’ isn’t as universal amongst painters now as one might imagine and the various forms of dealing with it are pertinent here. Light and colour are also crucial to all of these painters — colour reflecting light or absorbing light — illuminated or mute. And variously all these painters actively configure colour and materiality to evoke space or alternatively to reassert surface in their works.

Estelle Thompson, Jane Bustin and Rose Davey all assume, in their own ways that the painting is dictated by its own archetypical form and proportions. They each adhere to a reductive play whether via a modified use of monochrome or division of the painting field. Thompson’s seemingly simple colour compositions seek to trigger the eye and make the process of looking active. The weight, place, balance and discord of form and colour demand of, rather than placate, the eye. The flat colour is always animated, abraded and reworked so that the surface implies the history of its making. They sit on an edge between harmony and discord.

Davey, in a more architectural way, also paints to the proportions of the ‘field’. Her accentuated use of materials — wooden panels, which often remain visible — contrast the ‘skin’ of the paint employed. Earlier works directly referenced actual architecture, but now the planes of colour, sometimes window like, reference painting language and its architecture. In these paintings colour is employed to ‘hum’ and ‘hover’. They are visually concentrated.

In Bustin’s work, untouched surfaces operate alongside painted elements. The selection and orchestration of this contrasting or harmonising of materials forms the visual
‘hit’ and locks us into the viewing. Whether matte and mute, or super shiny, the way in which these are worked together is key. Bustin adds another dimension through verbal and musical allegations in order to emphasise the metaphysical potential of painting. She seeks to render visual concepts found in language, music, science and theology.
Art historically there also exists a tendency to de-canonise the rectangular field — artists such as Stella, Morellet and Buren de-constructed the rectangularity of painting. Simon Callery and Tamás Jovánovics represent this historical stream of painting in the Expanded Field.

Callery’s aim is to explore painting as both a pictorial and sculptural entity. He literally opens up and folds the surface of the work to form ‘paintings’ (25 continuous meters of canvas are used on a large work). In a parallel set of circular works, which are more like broken spheres that have shifted, it is this ‘slippage’ that deconstructs the painted field. Callery’s works do not transmit a finitude; they offer an emphatically material and temporal character — they are his ‘excavation sites’. Callery’s colour holds the weight of and is symbiotic with his use of form.

Jovánovics also deconstructs as a means to break the painterly field. Jovánovics sections and arranges multiple panels in order to accentuate their illusionistic power. The paintings make a floating visual sign, interacting with both real and virtual space. It is the implied depth of field and at the same time the actual bi-dimensionality of the painting that affects the viewer and locks them in. The eye moves rapidly from surface to space, and back again, caught in an unending visual scan. The result is both meditative and mesmerising. Lothar Götz, Károly Keserü and Dillwyn Smith each employ geometry in more eclectic ways and form the third tendency within this exhibition.

Götz makes paintings and wall paintings. The wall works (often large scale) employ geometric compositions with intense, complex colour distribution. In ‘Back and Forth’ Götz is represented by smaller paintings and drawings that emphasise line and dynamism. It is a nervous energy that propels the eye again, back and forth. In both his paintings and wall installations Götz sees colour as beautiful and a key aspect of life that surrounds us.

Keserü acknowledges revisiting and rethinking various twentieth century modernist ideas in his work. He is also interested in exploring the relationship of abstraction to archetypal decoration. Like Jovánovics he uses repetition but the ‘multiples’ in his works are found in his recurring lines, dots and grids. The order and disorder occurs as similar marks falter and change. Keserü’s making is meticulous (possibly laborious, though this implies without consideration) and every act is considered. Keserü’s dots and grids are for him a quasi-scientific exploration of optics and subatomic structures in painting.

While Keserü might be dealing with visual phenomena ‘on the border of visibility’, Smith seems to push the limits of the visual towards the meta-visual, employing homeopathic-alike transparent essences as pigments in his work. Smith’s canvases consist of fabric strips stitched together with a quasi geometry, loose and lyrical. The use of a ‘screeching’ colour key in one work contrasts the ‘bleached’ nuanced shift of greys and whites in another. Fabric as materiality is key. Sometimes Smith works with transparent fabric (like Bustin) to ‘dematerialise’ and evoke a space behind the picture plane. These are paintings without visible paint, fully employing the language of painting.

Our spoken or written language keeps evolving, adapted in time and use, making us evaluate its form, quantify its meaning and reinvent it. Surely the same applies to our use and evolution of visual language, painting language
— back and forth.

Estelle Thompson / Tamás Jovánovics

Anatole Notes project by Jane Bustin

Malade au Printemps 2010

The Anatole Notes project consists of assembled groupings of paintings, objects, paper and letterpress text. Each assemblage reflects on the unfinished fragmented poems ‘pour Anatole un tombeau’ by Stephane Mallarme (1879), ‘a tomb for Anatole’ translated by Paul Auster (1983).

These fragmented phrases are Mallarme’s attempt to come to terms with the death of his eight year old son Anatole. Paul Auster comments;
  ‘this is one of the most moving accounts of a man trying to come to grips with modern death, that is to say death without God.’
As a major symbolist poet, Mallarme was interested in Art reflecting upon an emotion or idea rather than representing the natural world. He believed;
  ‘the sensation becomes the truth, not the time and place’. 
He made many collaborations with artists of other disciplines e.g. Manet, Whistler, Munch, Debussy, Zola and Verlaine. The sound of Mallarme’s poems were as important and sometimes more important than the meaning. His most famous poem ‘un coup de cles’ was a major influence on hypertext. His use of the blank space and careful placement of words and punctuation on a page allowed non-linear and consequentially visual readings of the text.
In Mallarme’s pursuit for the ‘oeuvre pure’ he deduces that:
  ‘having found nothingness, I have found the beautiful’.
In the Anatole texts, it is apparent that Mallarme felt the inadequacy of words to translate the enormity of emotion he felt for his son’s death.

My reflections upon his texts attempt to combine the written words with visual equivalents to reveal the expansive meaning of the text. Each work consists of three or four painted objects arranged on the wall and floor; they are made of various materials e.g. wood, linen, paper, metal, oil paint and readymade chairs. The Mallarme text has been hand letter-pressed onto paper or linen by New North Press.

www.janebustin.com

For more info on this project contact David Gryn at david@artprojx.com

Jane Bustin at the London Original Print Fair – Royal Academy 19-21 April

The London Original Print Fair Evite

The Eagle Gallery will be exhibiting at the 26th London Original Print Fair at the Royal Academy, from 19 – 21 April

Jane Bustin will be exhibiting monoprints and letterpress texts from a project entitled Atemwende : Breathturn (after Paul Celan) made in collaboration with Graham Bignell, New North Press, London.

The Eagle Gallery is mounting a special display of artist’s book and printed objects and will be launching new print publications by artists including Jane Bustin, Tom Hammick and Will Maw.

Harriet Mena Hill and Mandy Bonnell will be running childrens workshops during the Fair and Tom Hammick will be giving a demonstration of reduction woodblock printing on Tuesday 19 April.

Eagle Gallery Stand no. 42
Royal Academy of Arts
Burlington House
Piccadilly
London W1

www.londonprintfair.com

www.emmahilleagle.com

www.janebustin.com

DIVERGENCE – an exhibition of abstract painting. Opens 2 Sept.

DIVERGENCE

featuring; Alice Browne, Jane Bustin, Dragica Carlin, Sarah McNulty, Nadia Mulder, Susan Sluglett, Claire Undy, Clare Wilson

in an exhibition of abstract painting at Forman’s Smokehouse Gallery, Stour Road, Fish Island, London E3 2NT

PRIVATE VIEW: Thursday 2 September 6-9pm

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Divergence is an exhibition of eight abstract painters whose work contains no theme or direct subject matter, nor exist as ‘abstractions’ of something real. Rather, they are explorations of their very nature as an abstract painting: an enquiry uniting all artists in the show. At the point of drawing conclusions their practises diverge, culminating in a widely varied selection of work, ranging from the coolly minimal to the energetically gestural. An enduring sense of the real and the human perpetuates throughout these eight diverse practises, creating an engaging visual experience for the viewer.

Divergence website

Visiting the exhbition

Thursday 2nd September – Sunday 3rd October 2010

Opening times: Thursday & Friday 5-9pm, Saturday & Sunday 12-5pm.

Getting there:

Forman’s Smokehouse Gallery is on Fish Island in East London and looks out across the new Olympic Stadium.

By public transport it is a short walk from Hackney Wick Station, (London Overground) or Pudding Mill Lane Station (DLR). Busses: 8, 26, 30, 236, 276, 388 and 488 also serve the local area.

For step-by-step, photographic directions from Hackney Wick Station, Pudding Mill DLR, or Old Ford Footbridge, please click here to be taken to Foreman’s website.

There is free street parking close to the gallery.

Images:

Alice Browne – Production Still

Jane Bustin – beloved on a chair

Dragica Carlin – Domination of Bronze

Sarah McNulty – Aerial

Nadia Mulder – Night Contours

Susan Sluglett – A Figure Marginalised

Claire Undy – Breath Breath

Clare Wilson - Slow Float