Glenn Middleton Exhibition
Venue: pythongallery
When: 06/11/2015 – 15/01/2016
Admission: Free
We would very much like to invite you to attend the opening of the final exhibition of this year at pythongallery.
On Friday 6th of November from 6-8:30pm we officially launch an astounding exhibition by North East Artist Glenn Middleton.
The show features Paintings and Drawings which are exceptional in their precision and technique but which also scrutinise the very nature of being human. Truly engaging and thought provoking Glenn’s work has to be seen in the flesh to be really appreciated.
We Hope you will be able to attend and help us celebrate this stunning and intriguing show and the continuing work the gallery does to bring some of the most amazing talent working in contemporary art to Middlesbrough.
Refreshments will be servd and local parking is free after 6pm.
Very kind regards, Peter Heselton
Ps Please feel free to circulate this invitation to your contacts.
Of his work Glenn says:
The paintings are based on photographs taken from newspapers, video and television.
The fascination lies not only in the content; the subject and what it might say about our culture, but also in its availability to us as passive consumers. We can use any image without permission or negotiation with the original subject because the need and means with which to share have made it public property. This is liberating, exhilarating and disturbing in equal measures. We become intruders, voyeurs and we cannot look away from the glare of such aggressive intimacy. The source photographs are bad, small scale, poor quality with no regard for formal considerations, such as composition. There is a feeling within of fracture and dislocation which can be seen as a metaphor for the broken society of such tabloid hysteria but it is the colour and light that is ultimately seductive and compelling.
The drawings are based on photographs of men of my age or older. They are made with pencil, pastel, charcoal and conte crayon. The photographs were taken during conversations reflecting on a shared indelible past, the uncertain future and obliquely, our own mortality.
Monochrome provides both a contrast to and a respite from the paintings which run concurrently. The close scrutiny of details using the point or edge of the stick is balanced by passages created using fingertips to mix and move the dry material around. Like the paintings, the primary concern is to search for patterns of light and shadow that form an equivalent for what is seen in the photograph when viewed from a distance and then up close.
Improvisation is essential, creating a tension between the back and forth. During the process the need to retain a likeness is born out of respect for the subject rather than a desire to mimic the photograph. Again, the irony of working in such an intimate, tactile and physical way upon the surface on an image of another man’s face is keenly felt and, at times, seems absurd. The question being asked of friends, acquaintances, colleagues and ‘mates’: is how deeply can we know each other, how much do we reveal?
