Supporting The Arts - 2022 September Exhibition

WINNER OF 2022 EXHIBITION

ANDREW SALES

“Stiletto” Andrew Sales, 2021/22
Oil on board, 120 x 90 cm

My subject matter is flexible but my style utilises the figurative and representational forms in painting. I draw a lot of my ideas from historical painting mixed in with my own experiences as I add specific personal thoughts and invented myths to the image. I like my paintings to work individually, or as a limited series of paintings that communicate their own unique message or conceptual thread. My practice seeks to play with the traditional norms of landscape and figurative painting and use it as a vessel to convey ideas and thoughts, from both direct observation and my own personal interpretation and imagination. I want to take representational painting away from its regularities and use it in a more conceptually abstract and philosophical way, to communicate ideas of any scale through experimentation and the subversion of traditional associated imagery and preconceived expectations. Instead of concentrating my subject matter to a narrow lens I am always keen to change its discourse, concept or theme, keeping my practice in constant development. Each painting is made to communicate its own associated idea or message with the viewer and to do this in the most moving and potentially serendipitous way possible. I aim for the paintings to have a direct and engaging concept yet paradoxically try to balance this with ambiguity and unease in order to allow a viewer to bring their own experience to the work. I think the audience’s search for meaning in the picture will open doors into their own thoughts and personal visual library, that in turn, may provide some emotional experience for them due to seeing the work. I always look to achieve a harmony between colour, composition and concept with each painting. Going so far as to making the shape and dimensions of the wooden panels I use and the type of frame relate to the concept and themes of that particular painting. I don't want to throw in ideas together but to let every part of the image relate to and amplify the cryptic message or narrative I am using as a concept. In the early stages this means allowing certain symbols and metaphors associated with the central idea to be discovered and harmonised as the final painting is planned out. Much of my work is intended to be allegorical, as I create archetypal characters and imagined landscapes that interact with each other, expressing an alternate narrative disguised within a set of imagined rules and aesthetic pictorial judgments. I observe very few physical objects or spaces to create paintings but appropriate digital reproductions of historic painting and images offered by film and literature. My painting process both reflects and utilizes the media saturated world we live in today to make handmade, concentrated images that are ironically, the material antithesis of the media that inspired them. My studio practice consists of using traditional academic oil painting methods with respect but also subverting and playing with them. Prioritising the harmony of the composition and colour with the associated themes and message of the painting. I try to be adventurous in my methods and constantly look to improve my process from the conceptual and developmental stages of each painting, through to the execution and final polished piece. I'm very interested in the materiality of paint through my application to the surface and its fluidity, experimenting with various textures, layers and glazes as appropriate to achieve the maximum effects. My technique requires strong under drawing, the use of glazes, scumbles and altering fluidity through thick and thin layers as appropriate to the object I am painting. I'm well aware of historic painting techniques and see my own method as an appropriation of academic painting mixed with various other influences in brushwork and colour from both contemporary and historic painters.

Stiletto originally came from the murder of Phillip Brierley in 2001 in Sale, Trafford. This was organized by his wife Tracey Seward who had, over years, built up an alter ego on hardcore pornographic websites, named as 'Stiletto'. Seward engaged in filming very particular fetish videos of herself wearing ladies’ shoes and using them to crush small invertebrates and animals, before she eventually manipulated some of her die-hard online fans to commit murder on her behalf. This painting is a meditation around those themes and ideas, investigating what they mean for us all as a much and more virtual/online society. My work tends to combine historic painting with recent social occurrences to create thought and dialogue around these issues.

www.Andrewsales.net/

“Am I Identical to my skin?”, 2022
Graphite on paper, 29.7 x 42 cm

2022 RUNNER UP

JEZZELLE KELLAM

In my work, I represent the body. Making conscious decisions in removing heads and parts of a body
is where my practice has led me. I have used this compositional decision as a vehicle for my ongoing
oeuvre that articulates my way of thinking.
By breaking down the form to how I see it, I attempt to encapsulate the physical, psychological, and
physiological properties of what it is like to inhabit a form, a human body. By bridging a gap between
the body and mind, my art and life are inextricably enmeshed.

Jezzelle H R Kellam (b 1999) is a graphite realistic illustrator, based in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. In her work, she represents the body. Making conscious decisions in removing heads and parts of a body is where her practice has led her. She has used this compositional decision as a vehicle for her ongoing oeuvre that articulates her way of thinking. “By breaking down the form to how I see it, I attempt to encapsulate the physical, psychological, and physiological properties of what it is like to inhabit a form, a human body. By bridging a gap between the body and mind. My art and life are inextricably enmeshed.”

Jezzelle’s work has been selected for the ING Discerning Eye exhibition 2021 and the open submission for the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Arts. She has had her work in numerous publications online such as Heroine Journal, The Art of Being Queer and Art From Heart: The Divine Feminine virtual exhibition and in multiple magazines such as Mad Womxn Magazine: Motherland and Spilt Milk Zine.

https://jezzellekellam.bigcartel.com/