Private & Public Gallery presents the opening of the first of three beautiful summer season exhibitions which will showcase artworks but the most sought after local and internationally acclaimed artists.
The exhibition features works by Florence Hutchings, Jane Yates & Robert Tilling MBE RI.
‘Inside Out is a group painting and drawing exhibition which provides a contemporary view of the artistic traditions of still life, landscape and interiors.
Featuring works from the 20th and 21st century, the exhibition opens to the public for a preview evening and drinks reception on Thursday 17th June and will then run daily until 9th July (except Sundays). This will be the first exhibition since February 2020 when there will be no restrictions on numbers so we expect a busy evening of celebrations.
In his catalogue essay gallery director Chris Clifford explains: “There are three linguistic definitions of the term ‘inside out’. The first suggests that the inner surface becomes the outer when a material is reversed. As small children we were often reminded by our parents that we’ve put our jumpers on ‘inside out’.
“The second implies a state of disarray often involving drastic reorganisation. Businesses, whole corporate empires even, are often subject to this type of forensic upheaval in order to improve the bottom line. ‘The company was turned inside out’.
“The third explains that an individual can have such a thorough knowledge of their ‘specialised subject’ that people will justifiably claim that they literally know it ‘inside out’.
“Within the context of modern and contemporary art practice each of the above definitions could be said to describe the thoughts and technical processes involved in the making of a successful painting. From the 1950s New York School of Abstract Expressionists and its French counterpoint tachisme (meaning to stain or splash) through to the 1980’s Neo-Expressionists and right up to the recent rebirth of figurative painting, artists have continually sought to rework their ideas on canvas, layering up paint, exposing their brush marks and revealing hidden gestures.
“The artist’s primary concern, whilst ponderously spending hours in the studio drastically reorganising the spacial arrangements of form and colour, has been to stretch the boundaries and accepted traditions within art practice by turning convention on its head.
“This disruptive approach to reinvention, in which the limits of painting are stretched inside out, provides us with new realties, images and previously unconsidered portrayals. This is the underlying truth of art at its very best. This is what makes art interesting for artists as much as it does for collectors.”
Robert Tilling
Chris says: “My interest in art history, theory and practice was ignited by the artist Robert Tilling. I still regard him as having the greatest influence on my career and his forensic knowledge of modern art, and in particular artists such as the British painters Patrick Heron and William Scott left a lasting impression upon me.
“In a captivating lecture Tilling explained to a room full of mildly terrified art students that Scott used the traditional subject of a table-top still-life as the starting point for his paintings. The subject, he explained, became deliberately ambiguous as the composition could be seen to suggest a landscape or a figure just as much as a still life. As viewers of Scott’s works we are, Tilling suggested, simultaneously indoors and outside at the same time.”
Scott’s influence over Tilling, who was known to many as a landscape painter, was not evident in the bands of colour that typically resembled sea and sky but towards the end of his life Robert Tilling produced a beautiful series of charcoal drawings that echoed Scott’s kitchen table scenes. Covering the period from 1988 to 2008 these highly collectable works illustrate the artist’s fascination with the genre and his influences which also include Giorgio Morandi and Nicolas de Stael.
Florence Hutchings
The British artist Florence Hutchings was born in Kent in 1996 and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. Since graduating in 2019 she has built an international reputation for her large size colourful still-life paintings which are inspired by everyday life and interior spaces. Hutchings’ surrounds herself with objects, drawings, plants, images and postcards that inspire her to create. Often, she relentlessly draws in her home, expanding her practice from the studio, bringing her work into the domestic sphere.
This has been evermore present during the recent lockdowns, where the artist was forced to adopt her own domesticity as her primary source of influence. The sink in the bathroom, the stand in the sitting room, the plants, pots, and vases which make up her home. Hutchings’ work is not just a documentation of the everyday. She uses a diverse vibrant palette and varied modes of painting to create a dialogue between the actual and the abstracted.
Jane Yates
Jane Yates, born Jersey 1981, originally studied Fashion Design before moving to London and working within the industry. She applied to Byam Shaw School of Art and was awarded a full scholarship for a one year diploma in Fine Art and was then offered a place at Chelsea School of Art.
Since then the artist has continued her exploration and fascination of the unconscious through psychotherapy and works professionally in this field which is complementary to her studio practice. Her confident, fluid and gestural paintings suggest landscape, sky and light and are produced in her north coast studio overlooking Bonne Nuit Bay in Jersey but they come from a place deep inside her soul and are outwards projections of the unconscious mind.
Visit the Gallery online or in-person
The exhibition is available online from Monday 19th April and can be viewed here.
The exhibition opens from Friday 18th June to Friday 9th July.
