Colour, character and the magic of art: 2 New Artists

2 New Artists on Show

Ella Garvey
The painter as archeologist: Ella Garvey collects imagery “spanning civilizations and styles, from ancient vessels to art nouveau design objects” The result is an aesthetic of an eclectic sensibility – think Salvador Dalí or David Lynch. Or the poetry of Icelandic pop phenomenon, Björk, whose songs create a space both hushed and thrilled – as you might describe a ritual, the sense of which inflects Ella’s paintings too. She’ll often compose them as frames within frames; this, alongside the recurrence of eyes, draws attention to the act of looking. Other symbols drift through her oeuvre: a sphynx, shells. They do so in painted space that has the removed reality of myth.

When we talk about the magic of art, we don’t always mean it literally. But magic is foregrounded in these paintings, through the occult, strange and votive. ‘The Untethered Vessel’ may remind of Keats’ ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ when he writes, "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter". The uncanny imbues these works, as in, what slips free of rationalisation into the wider realm of the sensual imagination. The esoteric is a source of renewed connection – including with the untold reveries of the past. What survives of us is a playful impulse, toward an elusive world

James Lang
Like a song splashed onto the canvas, these paintings by James Lang are a starburst of affect, colour and character. The urgency of memory, the strangeness of the inanimate in relation to the animate – these are parts of the work’s enthusiasm. The tone might be described as sophisticated naivete or intense humour. The eyes of the human figures will veer to the side: the supposed banality of the scenes is askance, the bright palette anything but banal.

They chime with the endearing – and eminently collectable – paintings of British artist David Spiller. Spiller's materials frequently include pop culture, childhood memories and iconic imagery. James Lang is also motivated by a deep love of British culture, an attentiveness deepened by his five years spent living in China (his art has been on show in the UK and China, and resides in international private collections). His phantasmagoric scenes are superimposed onto flat planes of bright colour: thickly applied, tactile acrylic paint suggests that the memory of culture may be grasped, after all.

Colour, character and the magic of art: 2 New Artists