Opening
times: Tue-Fri 12-5pm; Sat & Sun 11am -4pm;
Closed
Monday
This Autumn the O3 Gallery will present a selection
of works by landscape painter Kieran Stiles to coincide
with Oxford Castle’s Earth From The Air exhibition
of photographs by Yann Arthus-Bertrand.
Kieran has exhibited
in various galleries in London and Oxford and this
exhibition follows the recent success of shows in Oxford’s
Said Gallery and The Stables Gallery. Please join us
to view brand new work by this talented painter.
2007
Review by Shannon Harris
Contemporary British artist
Kieran Stiles’ paintings of the Cornish coastline,
made under varied weather conditions, are vibrant and
evocative. These variations on a
theme pay homage to this beautiful and rugged part of the world, where the artist
trained, and to which he frequently returns
"I'm making paintings, not of the landscape, but what the landscape feels like
to be in. The visual subject is just a reference point, a catalyst, I think the
work has more integrity that way. To paint one’s subject in a photographically
realistic way, I feel is a complete misrepresentation of the way humans experience
things visually. As I sit on a cliff top I am aware, of not one single, but many
things. I glance up to see an encroaching swathe of cloud, I look down at my
brushes, or to eat a sandwich, and every time I look back at my subject, it has
changed, as it must, because it is nature. I am experiencing thousands of tiny
visual moments, and I interpret them over a protracted period according to any
number of subjective or emotional criteria. If I am lucky, a successful painting
will incorporate all these things, and often only have a loose association to
the kind of image a camera might collect”
The paintings amply show Stiles’ abiding
fascination with colour and delicate tone balance, and are full of curious touches
and surprising textures, but the work also represents the culmination of a long
period of experimentation with new techniques which allow for much more vigorous
mark-making, and a richer, more subtle interplay of colour. The result is a startling
liberation of mark and line, In contrast to the deliberately restrained mark-making
of earlier works. As the laconic titles suggest, this work is not strictly observational,
but elemental and emotional; an attempt to see nature pared-down and raw, unencumbered
by human concerns and agendas. - Shannon Harris, July ’07.
www.kieranstiles.com |
