Sam Cartman, Steve Dilworth and Patricia Cain
Kilmorack Gallery, 8 May – 13 June
http://www.kilmorackgallery.co.uk/exhibitions/6/works/
Steve Dilworth, Moon Sight- Stone (Dunite, 60 x 30 x 20cm)
Kilmorack’s latest exhibition combines visions of Nature, Humanity and Industry with paintings by Sam Cartman, pastels and mixed media works by Patricia Cain and a striking collection of sculptural objects by internationally renowned artist Steve Dilworth.
Stylistically this latest body of work marks a high point for Sam Cartman, whose distinctive landscapes capture the mark of agriculture and industry on the land, coupled with the emotional weight of expansive, brooding Scottish skies. In the context of contemporary landscape painting in Britain, it is refreshing to see Cartman’s industrial palette and architecturally structured compositions, coupled with the immediate response of drawn and incised marks in pencil, charcoal and oils. Although from a distance the formal arrangement of form, colour, and line dominate, immediately drawing the eye into the composition, up close there is subtlety and variety in the artist’s handling of paint that is a real pleasure to behold.
Sam Cartman, Tynron Treelines (Oil, 58 x 61cm)
The bold deliberation and planar treatment of fields or sky are beautifully tempered by the textural qualities of thick impasto, using palette knife and brush, delicate washes and impulsive, spontaneous marks. Cartman’s engagement with the picture plane mirrors places where the imprint of human hands and industrial machinery are integrated into the rolling earth, hills and vegetation. These points of intersection between the structured order of the man-made landscape and natural elements are reflected in the artist’s paint handling.
Sam Cartman, Milnton Byre (Oil, 58 x 81cm)
Tellingly he chooses to paint a quarry on the Isle of Skye as opposed to the customary scene of misty mountains or an endless parade of picturesque coastal cottages. His art of landscape isn’t about the Romanticised or Picturesque but something more real and complex. The inherent design and physicality of paint create a sense of place somewhere between the rural countryside and urbanity. This edginess can be seen in the way that paint is layered, pronounced edges, accents of hot orange or red and in the positioning of human architecture. In Milnton Byre (Oil) an out building is set in an abstracted composition of dense yellow ochre, the stark whiteness containing a depth of ultramarine, drawing the eye to a distant horizon of smeared, circular trees in blue and greens. There is a feeling of focused isolation in this work, laid bare in the more abstract painting Elephant(Oil) in a deeper, cooler and vibrant palette of blues.
Sam Cartman, Skye Quarry (Oil, 91.5 x 122cm)
Cartman’s large scale painting Glenshee (Oil) sees the dynamic elements of his style pushed to their limit in an exciting combination of geometric abstraction and natural line. The sky is a progression of deepening tonality from left to right, intersected by white, rectangular impasto and the composition of blue, green, grey and white fields, with linear accents of orange and arched mountains, lead the eye to dwell convincingly at the centre of the composition. The sense of space and depth in the landscape is powerfully realised in the artist’s design, distinctive marks and distilled palette.
Patricia Cain, Thicket II (Pastel, 170 x 170cm)
Patricia Cain’s mixed media works and pastel drawings provide a visual counterpoint between natural forms and man –made structures. Favouring the diptych, Cain creates spaces for contemplation in bisected images of growth; both in the natural world Thicket II(Pastel) and the built environment Arena (Pastel). The division of the image and detailed marks intervenes in how we might ordinarily read (or momentarily scan) images drawn from everyday life. In Arena Cain creates an incredible sense of depth in a myriad of scaffolding, hard metal drawn in the contradictory medium of soft pastel. Out with the tangled branches of Thicket II, she creates negative white space for the viewer’s mind to wander into. There is a sense of mapped chaos in organically charged intersections of branches and foliage; interestingly resembling an aerial, God-like perspective of humanity in a built up urban setting.
Patricia Cain, Arena (Pastel, 186 x 250cm)
In Living as a Process (Pastel) Cain alludes to a human trajectory in young green leaves amongst a tangle of growth, set against swathes of white space, pregnant with creative possibilities. Whilst the scale of ambition in Cain’s large scale drawings is undeniable, her abstract collaged mixed media works, reminiscent of an aged Matisse, are less convincing. The bold abstraction of Forest (Watercolour and Pastel) displays a more interesting interplay of visual elements; colour, line and form, in a concentrated ground of red hot vermillion. Emotional and spatial depth is created with the utmost economy; with dual vertical lines in white and black receding into the distance, whilst the upright solidity of the tree in the foreground, partially shaded in pastel and with a single curve, brings the suggestion of growth in cool shades of green and blue.
Patricia Cain, Living as a Process (Pastel, 111 x 150cm)
On entering the gallery the gravitational pull of Steve Dilworth’s sculptural objects cuts a swathe through the space. The presentation of this three dimensional work on a series of waist height plinths allows the viewer to get up close from multiple angles and experience the intimately tactile qualities of each work, with directional lighting enhancing the angular precision of their sublime craftsmanship.
Moon Sight-Stone (Dunite) combines Deco-like elegance of line with the grounded integrity of stone, millions of years old. Drawn from the landscape of Harris, the seamless combination of fluid planes and orbital form suggests shifting light and perception, the phases of the moon, the passage of time and of the seasons over millennia. It is the entire cosmos in a single piece of earth; the living, breathing presence of Nature whose beauty lies in being both deadly and Divine. The complex hollows of the orbital cavity shift and change between positive and negative space, darkness and light, waxing and waning before the viewer’s eyes and summoning something deep within. Moon Sight-Stonespeaks to the viewer on a primal level. The hollow orb could be an eye or a grasping claw, the flawlessly smooth and dynamically sharp edges of hewn stone polished to perfection with natural accents glinting like stars. Linked to the legend of Seer Stones it is an object of ancient tradition, Art which has its origins in ritual and the stories we tell to make sense of the world and of ourselves.
Like many of Dilworth’s sculptural forms it is monumentally intimate and naturally ambiguous. Moon Sight-Stone could be an object of communication and sight over vast distances, a shapeshifting bird, or an entire landscape of human consciousness. What is invested in its making translates directly to the imagination of the viewer, connecting us to the impulses and contradictions that make us human. It is intensely physical and deeply cerebral in its acknowledgement of a way of seeing and being on the earth, linked to tribal or indigenous cultures. It is carved intuitively and engineered with perseverance, the weight of stone beautifully poised and balanced, cool to the touch, lithely evasive in movement to awaken the senses. This is not a sculptural object to be passively looked at and admired, to commemorate history or glorify its maker, but to be experienced and held within, an initiation into collective human memory and to aspects of self we may well have forgotten in the blurring attention deficit of everyday life. Dilworth’s objects have extraordinary clarity of form and intention, they’re not trying to be anything; they are real rather than representational and absolutely grounded in life, death and the human condition.
Steve Dilworth, Swift (Dunite and Swift, 23 x 9 x13cm)
Many of Dilworth’s objects contain once living material as transitional points in awakening consciousness. Life and death are eternal dance partners and in an intimate, hand held work like Swift (Dunite and Swift) this centre of spiritual gravity can be sensed and felt in the body. Hollows for the fingers on the underside of the object naturally fit the hands with the thumbs resting in mask-like eye sockets. The apex points towards the body with the weight of stone perfectly balanced , like an object for divining with inward directionality. The robust, masculine form feels like a recently discovered artefact from a long lost tribe, its centre of gravity resting in the collective unconscious. Plumbing the depths of the soul for recognition, this work suggests an innate connection with the timeless human need for Creativity and imagination as a source of renewal.
Steve Dilworth, Throwing Object (Lignum Vitae, Leather and Bird, 13cm diameter)
Another hand held work Throwing Object (Lignum Vitae, Leather and Bird) is crafted to naturally fit into the palms, the smooth wood and smell of bound, interlaced leather brilliantly melded together. Inside is an archetypal mystery, hidden from view and aligned with the spirit. Rattle (Burr Elm, fishing line and stone pebbles) is reminiscent of Neolithic fertility objects and ritual, with slices of elm creating an open rattle, like the deep crevice of a rock or the female body. As if miraculously confronting a wooden object that has survived over thousands of years, Dilworth’s Rattle is playfully and powerfully aligned with the fertile human imagination, the idea of rebirth and the art object as a bridge between the physical and the metaphysical.
Steve Dilworth, Water Skull Macquette (Mixed Media for Casting, 40 x 37 x 54cm)
Many of Dilworth’s sculptural forms feel as though they are in the process of transformation or becoming. The artist’s Water Skull Macquette (Mixed Media for Casting) is crafted from the inside out, with two halves fitting beautifully together in endlessly fluid, evolutionary form. Every surface, even those we cannot see are given equal care and consideration. It is a fascinating hybrid of outer carapace in the overlapping shell-like interior and inner skeleton in a hinged, oblong outer skull. Part insect, part crustacean and part marine mammal, it is born of natural elements and could be a fragment from an ancient past or a projection of the future once global warming has transformed the planet, returning it to a primordial, aquatic swamp. The aquiline curves invoke the elemental movement of water, whilst the solidity of the skull creates the impression of an organism built for endurance. As the model for a larger scale work, it would be wonderful to see Water Skull Macquette cast in bronze on a truly monumental scale and exhibited permanently in a public location.
Steve Dilworth Beaked Bird (Bronze Ed 3 of 5, 20 x 50 x 40cm)
Two versions of Beaked Bird (Bronze Ed 3 of 5), the first in a dark bronze patina and the second finished to a golden patina, reminiscent of organic materials such as aged stone, bone or ivory, is also a transformational and highly ambiguous object. Aside from the associations of its title, the elongated beak sits seamlessly in the hollows of a rounded elliptical form; suggesting the germination of a seed, the embryo of an as yet undiscovered species or a hermaphroditic organism. The combination of masculine and feminine forms is also an intriguing feature of Venus Stone (Dunite). Poised on its side like a reclining nude, Dilworth’s tooth form with sharpened roots links to earlier forms by the artist in alabaster and granite; inspired by hawking lures and ancient fertility statues such as theVenus of Willendorf. The supremely smooth dominant curves of this Venus Stone are essentially feminine; a crescent curve feels aligned to the transformational power of lunar phases and ancient mythology. The object is innately sensual to the touch, like a caress from hip to thigh but with a predatory angularity. Run your finger along the pointed root of the tooth and there is a sonic effect, like an invocation of our most basic instincts whether hunting or hunted. The duality of nature and of human nature, both masculine and feminine, is brought to bear in this work. It is powerful and subtle; in its soft sheen, sharpened lines and deceptive simplicity, a supremely honed object of complex human behaviour and psychology; sexual, sensual and invested in survival.
Steve Dilworth, Venus Stone (Dunite, 50 x 25 x 23cm)
There are many works in this exhibition to be savoured, enjoyed and revisited. The exquisite crafting of Dilworth’s sculptural objects, both in thought and execution, together with their presentation in the gallery space, naturally invite the viewer to make their own tactile and imaginative connections. The way that the thematic content of Cartman’s paintings and Cain’s pastels inform each other and the rich layers of association in the materials and crafting of Dilworth’s three dimensional objects make this an exceptional exhibition not to be missed.
All images by kind permission of Kilmorack Gallery.
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