Painters at Renshaw

I will discuss the biennial exhibition at Renshaw Street once more. This time I will talk about the pieces of work I felt the strongest attachment to when walking round, and still weeks on remain strongest in my memory.

Those who know me best will know that these are of course, the paintings. The first painter whose work we are introduced to is Zbyněk Sedlecký. These pieces are very large in scale and despite his use of acrylic on canvas he chooses to water down his paints like water colours. His quick style depicts vaguely recognisable features such as tall buildings and people. Because of his gestural style his work has a sense of time, much like a long exposure on a camera. He has also incorporated the use of linoleum and wooden panels into his work, this has the effect of distorting the view point. Are these part of the image, something obstructing our view or something else?

Another artist whose work interested me was Aime Mpane. His work is not strictly painting but his choice to work on a 2d surface and system of creating compositions lends itself to this section.
The biennial handbook tells us, ‘Mpanes work focuses primarily on the legacy of colonialism on the African continent’. The violent action of hacking portraits into wooden boards represents the scars left behind, even today, on the indigenous people.
The work is quite political and in my eyes, due to the tactile qualities and the physicality has been executed in a very powerful way.

I know we're not meant to have favourites, but after our initial visit I returned to the old Rapid building a few times just to see Tim Eitel’s ‘Matratze’ paintings.
His compositions, which make statements about desolate humanity, are very powerful. I feel this is due to the isolation of particular components. The biennial handbook tells us ‘he is nevertheless interested in understanding what type of images are retained by our minds from the overwhelming flood of mass communications.’ On reading about his process, I found that he first makes photographic documentation by taking snapshots of compositions that unexpectedly catch his attention, and then he will extract selected elements to become the core of the painting. I find that this method of filtering away the unnecessary factors makes a simpler yet stronger statement.