Exhibitions

For his first show at Poppy Sebire, Danny Rolph presents a new series of sapphire blue backed triplewall paintings. These new works are a continuation of Rolph’s investigation into his discourse with space. They are taking on a more direct relationship with painting's topology. The deep blue plastic ground upon which the actions occur offer up an infinite recessional space that resembles the night sky. This blue ground is where Rolph performs his analysis on forms and on colours and their ensuing drama

Rolph’s approach to each painting’s composition has as its starting point the horizontal lines of the triplewall material; the lined structure establishes a calm to the basic plane. Rolph effects his universe of information through collage, mixed media and paint on three layers, like a musician would plot his musical score. Reclaimed magazine cuttings of London buses and pages from colouring-in books of power rangers are some of the collaged elements that make up Bonar Law. Bright vinyl fragments and decorative cardboard cutouts are nailed to the surface. The recurring theme of antiquated forms of transport in this painting are an intentional direct reference to motion. Scrap images of old-fashioned aircraft are paradoxically trapped in a static moment of stillness within the painting’s layers.

Back-Roads Journeys begins in ‘The Diner’, an installation at Alan Cristea Gallery, where visitors are introduced to the Diner Waitress, unhappy in her job, waiting on the Trucker’s table; he’s stopped by for a quick burger. Their portraits are set alongside still lifes of fast food, a new series of screenprints on plexiglass of classic American diner food and a triptych interior scene made familiar through American road movies. The love story moves to ‘The Gas Station’ at Poppy Sebire’s gallery where we see the Diner Waitress who, having quit her job for a new life in the South, is hitching a lift with her friend the Trucker. Here, the narrative evolves with the addition of new characters associated with life on an American highway.

Boo Ritson depicts characters and still lifes drawn from her own imagined narratives merged with borrowed Americana. For each piece she paints her subject in a thick emulsion and then has the scene photographed whilst the paint is still wet. The resulting image sits somewhere between painting, sculpture, performance and photography. Ritson has always located her work in an American cultural context and has been fascinated by the process and by history of painting. In these new works at Alan Cristea Gallery and Poppy Sebire, she introduces her first ‘unfinished’ subjects, each one defined as much by what is absent as what the viewer sees.