The exhibition draws together three artists who explore themes of the “constructed portrait” through painting, ceramic sculpture and film.
Recent graduate, Emerson Pullman uses photographs as his source material to capture the likeness of his sitters, all people he knows personally – but the fabrics, colours and surroundings in this sitters’ environments are all imagined. Pullman intuitively collates imagery and applies concise abstract marks to construct the scenery around his figure. This achieves a composition that pushes the expressive boundaries of portraiture and allows the negative space of the canvas to come forth.As the painting is built up, memories of previous ideas are left evident or are obscured.
Painter and printmaker Liorah Tchiprout’s uncanny portraits bring to life inanimate objects. Tchiprout constructs puppets from wood and clay which she dresses in handmade clothes, jewellery and hairstyles. She positions these models in the way that a traditional portrait painter might direct their sitters to form the starting point of her compositions. Through the creation of her paintings, she charges these lifeless forms with tender emotion and gestural expression. We are left observing a strange liminal space between an intimate portrait of someone but disrupted by the mannerist signifiers of their rigid, elongated and disjointed origins.
By using clay, William Cobbing’s depiction of the head and hands nods to the most primal form of human visual expression and creativity. By using film, Cobbing bookends the human creative process from its origins of playing with mud dug up from the ground through to the complexities of technology which we all have available to us today. Although these are often self portraits, the obscuring of the face and its distinguishing features forces them to be considered as portraits of the anonymous everyman. The hand of the creator, often present in Cobbing’s work, is shown demonstrating the brutal, humorous and tender act of making.
Written especially for this exhibition, Leo Bussi’s poem, ‘The Darling of Reflection’, echoes the wide-ranging approaches to the construction of portraiture and its myriad of creative possibilities.
Sid Motion Gallery, 24a Penarth Centre, Hatcham Road, SE15 1TR.
Dates: 19th April – 25th May.
Opening Reception: 18 April, 6-8pm
Saturday 11 May | 3pm: Performance by William Cobbing & a poetry reading by Leo Bussi. RSVP here.
Usual gallery hours: Thursday – Saturday, 12 – 6pm or by appointment
Details: https://sidmotiongallery.co.uk
