Inaugural Exhibition of quarterly exhibitions sponsored by Landmark Plc and curated by art for living

1st December 2009, 125 Old Broad Street

 

Organised by the art for living team Sandra Higgins, Chris Barlow
and Kora Adler at info@artforliving.org.uk

 

Since marks and color are two elements basic to man’s expression, it is possible to think of Michael Chandler’s abstract painting as the representation of a beginning: perhaps the origin of this world, recalling a very distant time, or the beginning of the next world, revealing the unknown future.  Almost all of the paintings are characterized by soft, ample curves that occur on an abundance of different planes until reaching far into the imaginary vortices, hurricanes, whirlwinds and whirlpools of every kind, as if everything were moving, opening, and creating a new natural world, a new kind of primeval explosion which gradually orders itself into a system, a universe, a new form of nature. With surprising tenacity, almost monastic rigor, Chandler has never left the scope of oil on canvas. In order to make a painting, today as in the Middle Ages, a composition is needed, Michael Chandler knows this well ---his strength comes from his uncommon way of composing on canvas, compositions which find their power and renewal within the evolution of American abstract painting.
Taken from text by Grazia Quaroni

 

Ofelia Rodriguez draws upon everyday things to create extraordinary beauty. For her, art is the most intimate expression of the “totality that I have lived”. Inspired by Colombia and her natal town Barranquilla, her work according to critics and curators can be described as one of a ‘surrealist reality’.
Rodriguez’s work is an eclectic mesh of magical realism, Latin Pop and kitsch art, using vivid, tropical Caribbean colours. Observing her work is a chance to delve into imaginary fantasy worlds set in the Caribbean where myths, legends and popular traditions like sainthood intertwine with daily life. According to British art historian Dawn Ades, Rodriguez “has managed to unite the practices of European and US pop art, with the rich tradition of popular art in Latin America in original and vigorizing ways and forms.” The result is art that is at times a critical look at the world in which Rodriguez has lived, combined with an undercurrent of dark humor and irony lurking between the lines.
Taken from ‘the city paper’ review on the occasion of the exhibition at Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá MAMBO, Colombia, November, 2008

 

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