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Strange kinship in artists' joint collection |
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Wednesday, 22 August 2007 |
Described as "curious but not incompatible bedfellows", Mick Tracey and
Tony Snowden produce works that are unusual and quite different from
one another's, yet at the same time they possess a strange
kinship.
These two artists come together quite happily and harmoniously
in the aptly named exhibition Tales of the Unexpected currently being
held in Badcock's Gallery, Newlyn.
London-born
Mick Tracey - who will be remembered in particular by former readers of
the much-lamented Peninsula Voice in which his cartoons appeared
regularly for several years - has lived and worked in Cornwall since
the 1970's.
A graphic designer, cartoonist, joker or jester,
call him what you will, there is no doubting his ability either to draw
or his courage to comment in his drawings, often quite challengingly
even ferociously, on the human condition.
All of which may sound
forbidding, but that is not allowing for the humour which may be jet
black at times but is endemic in all that he does, soothes and softens
the nightmare quality in them and helps, as it were, to make the
medicine go down.
There is a decided touch of Hogarth in his
satirical views of the vices of men and women, smokers, those addicted
to 'the weed', for example, will have every sympathy with the plea for
rescue from the recent law banning smoking in public places in the
assembled fag-ridden heads and hands sheltering beneath a single
umbrella in The Dispossessed, while those who indulge in more than the
odd bevvy, who have had more than one over the eight on occasion and
have fallen foul of the 'demon drink, will identify with the distorted
head emerging from the bottle held by The Fickle Hand of Bacchus.
There is much to read and to enjoy in the 22 works presented.
Yorkshire-born
Tony Snowden travelled extensively after completing his study in art,
workint his way around Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia
before returning to this country.
In 2003, he moved with his
family to Penzance to stay for three years before returning only last
year to his birthplace of Beverley in East Yorkshire.
Currently
teaching part-time at Hull College and making works from memory and
drawing directly from nature, the 15 paintings, all oils on board, he
is presenting here can be interpreted in any number of ways.
He says: "I like a picture to remain open to interpretation. The more I use memory the more it opens up possibilities.
"In
a memory people seem to become a part of their surroundings and some
memories ferment over time and become a kind of distilled essence in
which it's possible to distinguish their individual texture.
"A lot of my subjects are very ambiguous, or else they are an accumulation of similar moments with a common atmosphere."
He
uses all the elements within a scene to convey the essence of the
moment, manipulating perspective and exaggerating the proportions of
people and objects to promote the emphasis he wants.
Generally
gentle in approach, made with a muted palette, many of them appear to
have been painted at nighttime, from Chywoone Hill with its soloitary
female figure and distant view of Penzance and the bay, to Cornfield
with yet another single female figure waiting at a crossroads between
crops, there is a haunting quality in his works which stays with one
long after having met them.
Snowden's paintings are as rewarding as they are redolent of the sadness of happy memories.
Tales of the Unexpected by Mick Tracey and Tony Snowden is on view in Badcock's Gallery, Newlyn until August 28.
The gallery is open from 10.30am to 5.30pm, Monday to Friday and 11am to 5.30pm, Saturday
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