Oscar Murillo: 'Violent Amnesia' At Kettle's Yard, Cambridge

Disclaimer:  

This post has been far too long in the writing - for which, apologies.  The exhibition it discusses - Oscar Murillo's 'Violent Amnesia' , at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, actually ended around two weeks ago.  However, with another show currently on in London, and a lot of attention pertaining to his Turner Prize nomination, Murillo still feels very much like a man of the moment, just now.  And to be honest, work like his is, in my opinion, worth discussing at any time.  The Cambridge show certainly whetted my appetite for Murillo's oeuvre, and has inspired me to try to visit his London exhibition in the coming days.  Perhaps this post will do something similar for you...  

Oscar Murillo, '(Untitled) Catalyst', Oil & Graphite On Canvas, 2018-19
(Detail Below)

The painter and multi-disciplinary artist, Oscar Murillo seems to be gaining plenty of recognition, just now - and for pretty good reasons, in my view.  Recently, I found myself at his recent 'Violent Amnesia' exhibition, at Kettle's Yard, in Cambridge's, with my friend, Tim - and came away feeling invigorated by what we saw.   

Oscar Murillo, '(Untitled) Catalyst', Oil & Graphite On Canvas, 2018-19
(Detail Below)

Oscar Murillo, '(Untitled) Catalyst', Oil & Graphite On Canvas, 2018-19
(Detail Below)

Murillo is an ex-patriot Columbian artist - from pretty humble origins, it would seem.  He studied in Britain, following his family's relocation, and has continued to made something of a base for himself here.  However, as would seem to be the case with many artists, these days, he seems to wander the globe relentlessly - seeking creative impetus, making cultural and conceptual connections, and collaborating, wherever it seems most appropriate to do so.  Certainly, ideas about migration, displacement, the complex and fluid, relationships between physical and mental territories - and about the friction between community and globalisation, all appear to form key thematic underpinnings to the work.  Indeed, Murillo has talked quite openly about borders, and the physical domains they delineate, as something he experiences largely through the window of a plane - his ideas and emotions flowing more universally, on the way to somewhere else.  If nothing else, the wide-ranging scope of his practice feels like a inspiring antidote to the growing and depressing trends of  nationalism and intellectual or imaginative restriction - against which any self-respecting artist must surely stand opposed, these days.     

Oscar Murillo, 'Violent Amnesia', Vinyl Cut Letters & White Paint On Wall
(Site Specific), 2019

The Cambridge show alluded to this early on.  The first, eponymous piece encountered, was a text-based memorial to a dead friend, which pleased me greatly with its use of vinyl cut lettering, applied directly to the wall - and partially obscured by a slew of gestural white paint.  However, that almost feels like an adjunct to the main show, which really began with a forbidding curtain of dark, roughly collaged canvas pieces, obscuring one's view of the work beyond in two directions.  This was actually the first instalment of Murillo's long-term project, 'The Institute Of Reconcilliation', which reappeared throughout the exhibition, at recurring intervals.  Here, it seemed to serve as a physical, as well as a visual obstacle to be overcome - suggesting to the seeker of artistic refreshment, "You must struggle to make any progress here."  Is this not also, in essence, the all-too-common experience of that quintessential twenty-first century figure - the migrant?     

Both Images: Oscar Murillo, '(Untitled) Catalyst' Paintings, With 'The Institute Of Reconciliation'
(Installation), Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, June 2019

Behind this, in one room of the impressive new Kettle's Yard exhibition space, hung a thrilling suite of Murillo's ambitious '(Untitled) Catalyst' paintings, alongside another phase of  'The Institute of Reconcilliation' (combining more tattered canvas drapery, damaged church pews, and a concoction of burnt corn and clay).  The latter appears to employ culture-specific references to the Colombian working classes, amongst other things, and is engaging enough.  However, with my painter's hat on - I'd be lying if I didn't admit it was the 'Catalyst' pieces that really blew me away, in that particular gallery.   

Oscar Murillo, 'The Institute Of Reconciliation', Oil On Canvas, Steel Rail, Church Pews,
Burnt Corn & Clay, 2014 - (Ongoing)

It occurs to me that it's increasingly rare to encounter this kind of ambitious, freely expressive, abstract painting in a contemporary exhibition, nowadays.  Nevertheless, it's still one of the most profound thrills in art, to be confronted, all over again, with someone's attempt to discover exactly how paint might get from one edge of a flat surface to another, with energy and verve.  Walking into this room was, for me, an experience not too far removed from that of engaging with Gerhard Richter's timeless 'Cage' suite, at Tate Modern.

Oscar Murillo, '(Untitled) Catalyst', Oil & Graphite On Canvas, 2018-19

Like much of my favourite painting of this kind, the 'Catalyst' pieces manage to combine  overall simplicity (at first sight), with almost infinite, multi-layered complexity - revealed as one stares into their depths.  Composed of tangled overlaid networks of scribbled marks, and broader veils of dragged colour, they achieve an imposing degree of monumentality, whilst also operating on a very human scale by obviously recording of the gestures of the hand and arm.  Indeed, they relate us to our infantile, attempts at clumsy, intuitive picture-making, even as they exist as mature and deeply reflective paintings.  This is, of course, essentially what the Abstract Expressionists were attempting, seventy-five odd years ago.  It's exhilarating to witness it being revived as an approach, with such verve and commitment, so deep into the Twenty-First Century.

Oscar Murillo, '(Untitled) Catalyst', Oil & Graphite On Canvas, 2018-19
(Detail Below)

That these paintings constitute a related series is evident not just from their shared and restricted palette of reds, blues and blacks (somewhat reminiscent of ball-point pens - I now realise), but also from the method of their execution.  It transpires that Murillo's method here involves laying one canvas over another - loaded with paint, before scribbling through from behind.  They are thus a species of turbo-charged mono-printing, as much as they are paintings in the traditional sense, and clearly evolve out of each other.  That the list of media employed includes graphite, emphasises that they are also drawings as much as paintings (if all that tangled calligraphy hadn't already proved the point).  It's no secret that I'm a sucker for a good series - and for such hybridised forms of media-transference.  

Oscar Murillo, '(Untitled) Law', Oil, Oil Stick & Graphite On Canvas & Velvet, 2018-19
(Detail Below)

Murillo's willingness to flit between modes of expression, even within the arena of wall-based picture-making, was underlined in the neighbouring gallery.  The paintings exhibited here combine much of the same expressionistic freedom, and indeed - an overall scruffiness which is thoroughly refreshing in these over-designed, digitally manipulated times.  Here though, Murillo also combines his painterly gestures with stencilled, screen printed and more carefully drawn motifs, as well as elements of scrawled text.  That he is a collagist too, is clear from this piling up of random, and possibly more symbolically freighted statements.  It's also made explicit in the means of physical construction often employed.  It transpires that many of his paintings are literally stitched together from separate sections of canvas - much as is the case with the draped pieces already encountered.

Oscar Murillo, 'Violent Amnesia' 'Oil, Oil Stick, Graphite & Screen Print On Canvas & Linen,
With Steel Rail, 2014-18 (Detail Below)

Oscar Murillo, 'Untitled', Oil On Canvas & Linen With Steel Rail, 2015-16 (Detail Below),
With: 'The Institute Of Reconciliation' (Detail)

The interrelatedness of all this is evident in the painting which again shares a title with the entire show, and which is constructed to hang, curtain-like from a steel pole.  Meanwhile, in a far corner, the (for me) most pleasing of Murillo's ragged canvas drapes ('untitled') obscured a window - content to revel in its pure grubby materiality, without carrying any imagery at all.  In such a fashion, Murillo gets from Rauschenberg to Eva Hesse in a single, effortless bound.  But if this weren't enough, his most dramatic intervention in this particular room - another iteration of 'The Institute of Reconciliation', proves his trans-media credentials, once and for all.  Here, a vast avalanche of seemingly filthy canvas sections, resembling discarded industrial tarpaulins, spilled across the floor.  The wall beyond,was defaced by a field of oily scuff marks - suggesting the canvas was dragged across it in the most rudimentary form of abstract image-transfer imaginable.  The inclusion of more burnt clay, corn, and coins here alludes to the already mentioned thematic underpinnings, but I'd have been more than content with it as a more ambiguously process-driven statement, to be perfectly honest.

Oscar Murillo, 'Surge', Oil, Oil Stick & Screen Print On Canvas & Linen, (2017-18)
With: 'The Institute Of Reconciliation' (Detail), 

Oscar Murillo, 'The Institute Of Reconciliation', Oil On Canvas, Coins, Burnt Corn & Clay,
2014- (Ongoing)

Indeed, if I have any criticism of Murillo's practice (or the small taste of it revealed in Cambridge), it is only that his seeming attempt to cover all bases, formally and conceptually, must inevitably fall a little flat eventually.  For me, this occurred next door, in the tiny St Peter's church.  The ever-expanding 'Institute..' continued here, featuring some pretty rudimentary papier mache figures, punctured by sections of metal ducting, and perched on yet more damaged church pews.  The accompanying notes reveal these to be reminiscent of yet more ritual sacrifice - in this case, the Colombian 'Mateo' effigies, traditionally burnt at New Year.  Murillo's intention with these, as with all his burning of clay, corn, and scattering of coinage, seems to be to comment on the exploitation of labour and destructiveness of consumption.  That's laudable enough, but again - I feel like the impressive formalist aspects of this multi-facetted installation somewhat overwhelm the socio-political content it purports to carry.  Ultimately though - who am I really, to criticise another, far more accomplished artist, for attempting to pack in too many things all at once? 

Oscar Murillo, 'Organisms Of All Countries Unite', Graphite, Oil Stick & Coloured Pencil On
Paper With Carbon Paper, 2016 (Details Below)

And that Oscar Murillo is actually able to cash most of the cheques he writes, was revealed in a couple of smaller spaces, upstairs at Kettle's Yard.  'Organisms From All Countries Unite', comprises four composite suites of meticulous drawings, over which are imposed abstract gestures in a far cruder hand.  The drawings, it transpires - are executed by another artist, commissioned to work from photographs taken by Murillo, to document the economic decline of the once-prosperous (in Soviet times) Azerbaijani village of Sheki.  The gestural defacement was then committed by Murillo - in a piece of disruptive collaboration of which I thoroughly approve.  It feels like a far more eloquent attempt to reconcile visual expressiveness with a socio-political theme somehow - perhaps because of the inclusion of explicit representational imagery, and the conflict between two authorial voices.

Oscar Murillo, 'Organisms Of All Countries Unite', Graphite, Oil Stick & Coloured Pencil On
Paper With Carbon Paper, 2016 (Detail Below)

Also upstairs, hung another collaborative statement, in the form of the mixed media piece, 'Frequencies'.  This represents an on-going project, in which Murillo encourages school students to carry-out free-associative drawings on pieces of canvas, wherever his international travels take him.  These are subsequently stitched together in the form of yet more stitched drapes - potentially giving voice to all the world's children, I suppose.  For such an ambitiously outward-facing, and engaged artist, that seems like a perfectly appropriate ambition.  And after all, if it's not an artist's job to cut creatively through all the barriers of inequality, misunderstanding, and isolationism, currently besetting us all - whose is it?  Oscar Murillo seems admirably up for the task.   

Oscar Murillo & International Students Aged 10-16, 'Frequencies', Mixed Media, 2015
(Part Of Long-Term Collaborative Project)

Oscar Murillo: 'Violent Amnesia', ran  9 April - 23 June 2019, at Kettle's Yard, University Of Cambridge, Castle Street, Cambridge, CB3 0AQ.

Oscar Murillo: 'Manifestation' runs until 26 July 2019, at David Zwirner, 24 Grafton Street, London, W1S 4EZ

'Jasper Johns: Something Resembling Truth' At Royal Academy Of Arts, London

Jasper Johns, 'Target', Encaustic & Collage On Canvas, 1961

Over the recent Half Term holidays, I went to view The Royal Academy’s current 'Jasper Johns: Something Resembling Truth' retrospective exhibition, along with my friends, Tim and Andrew.  It’s a show I’ve been anticipating all year.  Here are some of the things I learned:

• The early pieces with which Johns made such an impact, still feel strangely – almost hermetically, unassailable.  We’ve lived with copious reproductions of those targets, Stars & Stripes flags, US maps and numerals for over half a century, and yet the effect of the originals remains urgent and immediate.  And, despite such familiarity, the chances to see the real things, here in Europe - have been few and far between.  My initial reaction, on approaching these pieces for the first time, was a surprisingly emotional one of real joy.

Jasper Johns, 'Flag', Encaustic & Collage On Canvas, 1967

• There’s a crisp freshness about many of these pieces.  The target and flags that greet the visitor at the start of the exhibition show little of the aging or loss of vibrancy one might expect from paintings of their vintage.  Does the wax involved in Johns’ encaustic technique help to somehow fix the pigments – or were they just always particularly well cared-for as a result of their almost instant market value?

Jasper Johns, 'Map', Encaustic & Collage On Canvas, 1962 - 63

Jasper Johns, '0 Through 9', Charcoal & Pastel On Paper, 1961

• That initial celebratory rush gave way to a more reflective appreciation of just how much of an influence Johns’ characteristic aesthetic, and general demeanour have been on me over the years.  It emphasised the extent to which I have quoted him, both wittingly and unwittingly, on numerous occasions.  My ‘Vestige’ paintings from last year may - I now realise, be as much a subconcious paraphrasing of his ‘Canvas’, as they are a response to the actual street-based subject that triggered them.  My enthusiasm for a certain variety of battleship grey (Johns is a master of the greys), and deployment of text elements within my work - are as attributable to the influence of Johns as to that of any other artist possibly associated with them. 

Jasper Johns, 'Canvas', Encaustic & Collage On Canvas, 1956

• The established art historical significance of Johns’ breakthrough pieces is well rehearsed, and the passage of time has inevitably cemented them into the general canon of Modern Art.  It’s hard for us to fully appreciate now, the real disruptive effect their recourse to external ‘subject’ must have presented to the Abstract Expressionist certainties of mid-century New York painting.  Johns’ destruction of his very earliest work indicates his emergence wasn’t quite as fully formed and instantaneous as official history suggests, but does emphasise the degree to which it represented a significant step-change in everyone’s artistic priorities (including his own).  If Duchamp once pointed the way out of established European tropes, perhaps Johns (and Rauschenberg) did the same for American art.

• In fact, it actually feels like Johns’ agenda was often one of repurposing Duchamp’s pioneering promotion of the idea over the sensory appeal of the artifact - back in favour of the resonant art object.  There is a certain stripe of conservatism running through Johns, who remains, at his core - a maker of beautiful things.  He seems to epitomise my own trite personal mantra that Art is certainly a branch of Philosophy – but one in which you still get the joy of making stuff.

Jasper Johns, 'Fool's House', Oil, Sculpt-Metal & Charcoal On Canvas
With Objects, 1961-62

• Johns has naturally beautiful visual handwriting.  He is one of Art’s consistently elegant scribblers and possesses an enviable deftness with the nominally expressionistic brush stroke.

Jasper Johns, 'Periscope (Hart Crane)', Oil On Canvas, 1963

• For all that, his deployment of the gestural mark actually appears to serve a different purpose.  There’s a distancing effect in the early works, in which Johns appears to quote expressionism as a formal option, rather than an unconscious outpouring - and as a means to create nuance and a friction of new implications within his utilitarian, given subjects.  Put simply - to modulate and encrust formal elements that we expect to be functional signs, is to invest them with new layers of potential meaning.

• …And, I’ve always loved the pictorial tension between a loose, painterly fields and a crisp, precise edge – of which Johns is a consummate master.

Jasper Johns, 'The Critic Sees', Sculpt-Metal On Plaster With Glass, 1961

• Sculptures like ‘The Critic Sees’, or the ‘Painted Bronze’s, are among the most elegant jokes in Modern Art, and feel distinctly part of Duchamp’s legacy.

Jasper Johns, 'Painted Bronze', Oil On Bronze, 1961

Jasper Johns, 'Painted Bronze', Oil On Bronze, 1960

• If Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg were once roped together, (even more intimately than Braque and Picasso, at another pivotal moment in western art), how fortunate are we to have been presented with major retrospectives of both artists in recent months?  The chance to compare and re-evaluate works so emblematic of their particular moment - and so freighted with significance, (and to mostly find them still vital and enduring in resonance) feels like a luxury.  This show hasn’t been without its detractors, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

• In the light of this, is it too obvious to observe the inconvenient (but oft-repeated) sense of a diminution of power in the later work of both artists?  Of course, these things never travel in an undeviatingly straight line, or as explicably as art critics and historians would wish.  Nevertheless, both retrospectives seem to suggest a certain dilution in the intensity of each artist’s powers or effect, as time went on.  Is this the price to be paid for such early acclaim? - or a debilitating function of the foaming art market? - or simply an assertion that almost no one can keep scaling the same lofty heights of eloquence they once did, whilst simultaneously avoiding the spiral into repetition and self-parody?

Jasper Johns, 'Spring', Encaustic On Canvas, 1986

• And this is, of course, the real dilemma with John’s career.  The prevailing theory that his work beyond the 1970s represents a notable fall-off in quality and purpose is commonly heard, but I was determined to seize the opportunity to make up my own mind.  The sad fact is, all three of us found more foundation in that view than we might have hoped for.  Regrettable though that may be, 'Something Resembling Truth' must surely trump any desire to airbrush an artist’s reputation.  Perhaps we should instead be grateful that an artist who seems almost too good to be true, early on, proved himself merely human after all.  And ultimately, I’d defend the right of any artist to struggle on for as long as they feel the need to – regardless of the outcomes.  The truth is, it’s probably less of a problem for Johns than it is for his audience and critics.

Jasper Johns, 'Racing Thoughts', Encaustic & Collage On Canvas, 1983

• For what it’s worth, my own ‘problem’ seems connected to John’s desire to replace his earlier, peerless demeanour of cool detachment, with one in which he admitted personal emotions and insights into the work.  But that’s hardly a crime per se.  Indeed, it still forms the main agenda of a huge proportion of artists.  And the impulse to collage more personal allusions, obscure signifiers and tangential references into an oeuvre where once elegant distillation or a tendency toward minimalist concentration once held sway, is a forgivable ambition.  It might even represent a degree of personal growth on Johns’ part.  The real issue is a seeming difficulty in realising his new agenda.  There’s a sense of an artist forcing the ideas more, at the same time as the ability (or energy) to resolve them is somehow diminished.

Jasper Johns, 'Montez Singing', Oil On Canvas, 1989-90

• What feels most disappointing is the transition in Johns’ work from sublime plasticity (be it painterly, sculptural, or in print), to a dispiritingly thin variety of illustration.  It seems ironic that his shift to more personal subjects, and emotional insights, should seem them merely described (often poorly), rather than evoked.  It’s a seeming reversal of his earlier state of sensual philosophy.  The use of supposed trompe-l’oeil effects, feels particularly shoddy (all those corny peeling corners and badly-rendered nails).  It could have been an interesting strategy, but actually ends up feeling lazy and lame.  The quotation of child-art eyes and lips is especially embarrassing (when it might have been a effective paraphrase).  A painting like ‘Montez Singing’ looks like a waste of a lunch break.  It’s all somewhat dispiriting, and I was surprised by how much anger it seemed to unleash within us.  Is that just an inevitable pit-fall of hero worship, I wonder?

• Of course, it could just be that John’s mark-making is better suited to the abstract that to the representational.  Could my adverse reaction be because that is how I feel about my own?

Jasper Johns, 'Between The Clock And The Bed', Oil On Canvas, 1981

Jasper Johns, 'Corpse And Mirror', Oil On Sand On Canvas, 1974 - 75

• Although it represents a transitional phase between ‘classic’ early Johns, and the more questionable later work, I still find much to like in his works from the 1970s and early 80s – in which all over patterns of hatching and flagstones take precedence over the more overtly emblematic motifs of previous years.  These new devices might appear to hark back to the painterly concerns of the Abstract Expressionists, but there’s still a sense of conscious deliberation about Johns’ new methods of getting across a canvas.  They feel like signifiers for certain Ab Ex. tropes, rather than an unmediated outpouring of emotion or spirituality, and despite their more obscure, personal origins are essentially just new elements of vocabulary within Johns’ own invented pictorial language.  There is a sense of layered meanings filtered through these broken fields; but they are mainly still references to external sources or quotations from other artists (such as Edvard Munch) – rather than any non-specific expressionism.

Jasper Johns, 'Dancers On A Plane, 'Oil On Canvas With Painted Bronze Frame', 1980

• Thankfully, not all the news from the latter portion of the exhibition is as bad.  The ‘Regrets’ series feels to me like a moderate return to at least some of Johns’ intrinsic strengths.  He selects a single, found motif in a photo of Lucian Freud, commissioned by Francis Bacon.  Instead of overburdening it with additional imagery, he allows its resonances to emerge through the layering and mirroring of this single source; for the negative shape created by the photo’s damaged portion to become a formal pictorial element of some significance; and for the ghostly skull which haunts the series to be found through pictorial chance operation - rather than tritely imposed.  Lest we forget, Johns moved in the same circles as John Cage, back in the day.

 

Jasper Johns, 'Regrets', Oil On Canvas, 2013

• Whilst the exhibition closes with a perfectly acceptable painting derived from the Freud image, the full implications of the ‘Regrets’ series really play out in a suite of printed variations on the theme.  Johns continues to quote himself (and others) in all this, but it feels like he’s digging a bit deeper again, and releasing things rather than merely forcing them.

Jasper Johns, 'Regrets (State 13)' Aquatint On Paper, 2013

• The underlying theme of ‘Regrets’ is a fairly standard one of ageing and impending demise -  underpinned by a distinct sense of existential despair.  But, surely that’s forgivable from an octogenarian artist – isn’t it?  Would that we might all be working as productively as Johns, at a similarly advanced age.

'Jasper Johns: Something Resembling Truth' runs until 10.12.17 at: Royal Academy Of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W1S 3ET.

Rae's A Smile: Even More Thoughts About Fiona Rae

Fiona Rae, 'Shifting Sands Dusts Its Cheek In Powdered Beauty',  Oil &
Acrylic On Canvas, 2010

This post contains some more reflections on the work of Fiona Rae, following my recent visit to the ‘Painter, Painter: Dan Perfect, Fiona Rae’ exhibition at Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery.  I’ve written about her on here before, after seeing her paintings in Walsall in 2012 [1.], and still stand by what I wrote then.  The current Nottingham show focuses on her most recent output, so I’ll concentrate on that now, hopefully without too much repetition.  As before, these are miscellaneous reactions to the work on show, rather than a coherent thesis about Rae’s project.

• The text characters that first drew me to Fiona Rae's paintings have largely disappeared in recent years.  I'll admit I miss them, but there's still no shortage of Pop content, and certainly plenty to captivate and intrigue in her current paintings.  They aren't without their crisper-edged graphic motifs, but the visual vocabulary Rae adopts now constitutes a rather more traditionally painterly language, seen overall.

• This manifests itself most obviously in her use of thin, sloshed-on and freely dripping paint.  Currently, this seems her favourite way of covering distance, and of establishing some form of nebulous ‘ground’ early in a painting’s development.  However such drips and veils also creep over earlier statements at times, lending much of the work an aquatic or partially submerged quality.  The lush, distinctly tropical ‘Shifting Sands Dusts Its Cheek In Powdered Beauty’, would be an obvious example of this.

Fiona Rea, 'I Need Gentle Conversations', Oil & Acrylic On Canvas, 2012

• Accompanying the inherent liquidity of Rae’s current work, there’s a general trend towards increased openness within it too.  ‘I Need Gentle Conversations’, in particular, is very economical, consisting of some pale sloshes of fluid paint, a little brushed calligraphy, and tiny, sparsely-scattered decorative motifs, over a plain field of sky blue.  ‘I Always Wish You Every Happiness With My Whole Heart In The Distance’ feels like its nocturnal companion piece and isn’t much busier, with plenty of solid black ground visible between it’s painterly gestures and drawn elements.

Fiona Rae, 'I Always Wish You Every Happiness With My Whole Heart
In The Distance', Oil & Acrylic On Canvas, 2012

• It might be tempting to dismiss some of this as superficial or tossed away, but I prefer to see it as Rae engaging with the concept of ‘less is more’.  After years of relative sensory and information overload, it feels like she’s keen to allow her paintings to breath and to find out how little is actually necessary to resolve them.  Some would argue that this is something most mature painters try eventually.

Fiona Rae, 'Does Now Exist?', Oil & Acrylic On Canvas, 2013

• It’s impossible to ignore the palpable Orientalism of Rae’s current vision.  Her own origins lie in Hong Kong, and so often now her imagery seems to look back to The Far East.  The paintings mentioned above all approach the feel of Chinese or Japanese watercolours and the suggestion of pendant branches drenched in blossom.  There’s more than a hint of Chinese textile design about ‘Does Now Exist’ and ‘Dusk Brings Your Eyes’, with their peacock palette and bunches of brushstrokes that loop into implied blooms or butterflies.  In ‘Mixing Feelings And Time’, gravity coaxes the unusually sombre, washed ground into a precipitous mountain landscape, above which flies a bold graphic device constructed from left-over Chinese dragon components.

Fiona Rae, 'Mixing Feelings & Time', Oil & Acrylic On Canvas,  2012

• This being the twenty-first century, there’s little resembling ‘authenticity’ in all this.  The cartoonish panda-bear motifs that crop up repeatedly in these paintings derive from cute mascots bought, not in Hong Kong or Shanghai, but New York.  Everything is mediated through global cultural filters of one sort or another.  Rae’s ‘foreground’ elements are often depicted with crisp, black linearity, suggesting the conventions of animation or comic book illustration.  Her predilection for strings of dots might resemble beads or bulbs, but also remind me of the tourism-driven market in Australian Aboriginal painting too.

• The Artist maintains that those devices are there to act as a foil to her more earnest or ‘meaningful’ passages of expressive paint.  There’s no doubt we are frequently arrested (and delighted), by the kitsch stars and cheeky faces peeping from between her more painterly statements.  However, I suspect it’s all pretty knowing really, and that even her more Expressionist strategies are exactly that, - recognisable signifiers.  She may throw plenty of ‘pure’ paint into the pot these days, but this is still more like the restless Post-Modern recombination of readable motifs, than the obscurity, portentousness or quasi-spiritual affectations of the New York School.  Indeed, is not the very idea of ‘meaningful’ paint not itself just another such sign these days?

Fiona Rae, 'Everything Will Be Beyond Your Thinking', Oil & Acrylic
On Canvas, 2012

• I’m always cheered by how Fiona Rae strips all the potential machismo out of abstract painting whilst leaving us in no doubt over her seriousness as a painter.  It would be easy to dismiss all those cuddly pandas, stars, decorative flourishes (and, in the past, - glitter), if they weren’t all adding to our sum of knowledge about how grown-up paintings might be constructed today.  Her small-scale collages cheerfully recall a teenage girls’ scrapbook, but are full of formal considerations and the intrinsic abstract qualities of their supposedly frivolous raw materials.  It’s like she’s constantly challenging the blokes to get on their critical high horses.

Fiona Rae, 'Untitled (Small Collage No 26)', Mixed Media On Archive Paper On Board, 2011

• There’s a feast of colour to be enjoyed in these paintings.  The near psychedelia of ‘Do Not Scream’ or ‘Shifting Sands Dusts It’s Cheek In Powdered Beauty’ emphasise her skill with a candy-coated synthetic palette, but elsewhere, she uses such hues as galvanising accents within far more sophisticated, even naturalistic schemes.  The earthiness of ‘Mixed Feelings And Time’ is a genuine surprise in this show, and it’s also important to recognise there are just as many darker paintings in Rae’s oeuvre as brilliant ones.

Fiona Rae, ' Do Not Scream!!', Oil, Acrylic & Gouache On Canvas, 2010

• In the past, Rae often seemed to arrive at compositional solutions through an embrace of scattergun randomness.  Nowadays she seems to marshal certain pictorial elements into almost arbitrary compositional armatures, - imposing order on looser passages.  This is particularly obvious where she has drawn straight lines between stars, to create an implied diagram of constellations.  In that last painting, it’s the cheeky pandas that are interconnected as they apparently float in cartoon space

Fiona Rae, 'Does Now Exist?' (Detail), Oil & Acrylic On Canvas, 2013

• Rae’s paintings have always gathered numerous parallel realities in simultaneous but seemingly indifferent relationships.  Disparate elements orbit, or even impinge upon each other but with no focal point or suggestion that they even inhabiting a common physical space.  There’s no coherent scalar logic there either, and the smallest of details can command our attention at any given moment.  What there is, instead, is a series of notional internal spaces, (or space/times), and even a suggestion of quantum or particle Physics as a result.

• For me though, the real analogy is of cyberspace.  These paintings seem to epitomise that sense of island hopping between parcels of information whose spontaneous connections occur, then evaporate, in a click or a swipe.  Where a more convincing inhabitable environment begins to coalesce, as in ‘Do Not Scream !!’, it still feels like a temporary situation constructed from unexpected, fleeting conjunctions.  I’m consistently impressed by Rae’s ability to inject our current cultural ADHD into a static (and traditionally contemplative), medium, whilst retaining all the stuff that makes painting great in the first place.

‘Painter, Painter: Dan Perfect, Fiona Rae’, continues until 6 July at Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Lenton Road, Nottingham NG1 6EL.

Perfect and Rae will be talking about their work and conducting a tour of the exhibition between 2.30 – 3.30 pm on 28 June 2014.

[1.]:  Fiona Rae, ‘Maybe You Can Live On The Moon In The Next Century’, The New Art Gallery, Walsall, 2012.