Gallery - Richard Besley - "Paintings" 20 July - 7 August , 2010
New paintings are presented by emerging artist Richard Besley at his fourth exhibition at Chapman and Bailey gallery. These delicate and intricate compositions reveal a preoccupation with surfaces, layers and light.
The current paintings have developed from an ongoing body of work in which abstract compositions are derived from natural forms and patterns. Besley’s previous three exhibitions have featured delicate pastels on paper which, in the current work, have evolved into large scale works on canvas.
Rich surfaces are built up through paring back layers of texture and glaze. Suffused with intense colour, the work is suspended somewhere between the metaphysical and material. While referring to the natural world the images ultimately evoke otherworldliness and suggest an internal process of change.
"Through building up and rubbing back layers of pigment, I hope to allow a natural process to occur from which an image emerges. While I generate and manipulate the process, some essential quality of the artwork occurs by virtue of an aspect of the process which is outside my control."
"I keep working the surface, disregarding composition until something happens such as a texture or colour relationship which excites me. I then allow this detail to suggest a composition which emerges as the final stage of the process. I have no idea what it will look like until this happens – I try to surrender my vision for the image prior to this so as not to prejudice what might work out."
Richard Besley 2010
The exhibition runs from 20th July -7th August 2010 at Chapman & Bailey, 350 Johnston St, Abbotsford.
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