'Between Order & Expression'
                                       Drawings & Paintings

                     Solo Show at Morvah  SchoolHouse Gallery
                                                  

‘Between Order & Expression'
This exhibition presents a series of works, concerned with issues relating to women and their roles in society. However, these are dealt with by opening up areas of feeling rather than merely illustrating particular situations. Living in an oriental culture (Japan) with different values, for a number of years, provided the impetus for bringing the role of women in society into sharp focus. Observing women in various situations, exploring contrasts between formality and fluidity, restriction and freedom, male and female provides fertile ground for visual experiment where colour and symbolic forms drawn from across two cultures take on expressive rather than descriptive dimensions. 

Reiterating these contrasts, Washi, handmade Japanese paper used in many of the works is both fragile tough and hardwearing, like many of the women I study. For example ‘Let the welfare of the people be the final law’, and  ‘Red Parallels’ and Blue Parallels’ have been sourced from studies of the dance, a source I have returned to at various times in a variety of forms over many years as it has both clear structures and rhythms as well as vital expressive qualities.

The series of mixed media drawings and paintings depicting Margaret making small sculptures explore the expressive qualities of the hands and face. Initially observations for sources to be developed into other works they became a substantial and sustained series of work in its own right where I was able to focus on the expressive qualities ‘between order and expression’. 

Drawing is a constant practice for accumulating, investigating and working through the process of development into final works, which incorporate other medias, collage, paint, and print.  The connection between drawing and painting is cyclical not linear, constantly rerouting developments through a tangible engagement in image making, with repetition leading to transformation. 

Viv Allbright 2012