Brian Sinfield Art Gallery
Current Exhibition
Peter White 18 September 2021 - 2 October 2021
Peter White’s paintings are both stunning and unforgettable. His large works stop you in your tracks and command the room in which they hang. The mix of oil, wax and acrylic gives a unique, almost spiritual, quality to his paintings. But Peter does not always work on a grand scale. Some of his paintings are as small as 10 x 9 cm. These are gems ... exquisite and precious.
Brian Sinfield said of Peter’s work, “Peter White’s extraordinary paintings force you to look at objects in an entirely different way. The very size of some of his paintings empowers them with a life of their own.
These are immensely powerful, challenging paintings from an artist with a unique vision.”
Of course the person best qualified to describe the process is the artist himself.
“The work begins – a board, some paint, some chalk, a brush, a knife - making cracks and fissures, giving tooth, giving ruggedness to layer on layer. Some kind of colour of the land perhaps - dripped wax, brushed and blow-torched molten wax, cooled and hardened blade scraped flat wax - translucent, underneath reveals itself. The painting resting on the floor, puddles dried to sediment - hanging on the wall, the washes, runs and rivulets catch and hold in cracks and crevices. And whose process is this anyway, this moving matter with the hope some light, some simple form, some simple object will emerge that I can recognise and call my own?”
Peter White was born in Ayrshire and studied at Edinburgh College of Art. He moved to Ullapool in north west Scotland in 1994 and lives there still. He has received numerous awards, including the Royal Scottish Academy Latimer prize, the Oppenheim Prize and the RGI Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow award. In 2008 he was artist in residence with Care International in Amman, Jordan.
This will be Peter’s fourth solo show with the gallery and we are absolutely delighted to be exhibiting this new body of work.
To view all available works click here
Featured Artist
Chris Sims
"Abstract art in Britain has always had a mixed press, mainly because few people understand it, or are prepared to understand it. Essentially it might be summed up in three words: Non Representational Art. Many of the greatest abstract artists - Picasso being a prime example - began by producing strictly representational art, but by a process of elimination arrived at abstraction. Of course this is a mighty simplification, but when you consider all the 'isms' - Abstract Impressionism, Cubism, Constructionism, etc, etc, you can see the need for simplification. Abstraction is 'saying something without actually saying it.' It is a different way of looking at the world and at objects, and undoubtedly allows the artist to express his or her deepest emotions through mark making and colour. Abstract painting, like modern art in general, has a language of its own which has to be understood before it can be fully appreciated, rather than dismissed out of hand. Then again abstract art can simply appeal to the senses, often possessing that 'wow' factor - you either love it or you don't, irrespective of whether you understand it or not; it goes no deeper than that.
No-one can question the integrity of Chris Sim's abstracts. They stand on their own merit as works of art, and lead the viewer on an adventure, not found in representational works of art". Brian Sinfield
Image illustrated: Endurance | oil on canvas | 80 x 122 cm
To view all available paintings:
https://briansinfield.com/artist/chris-sims
Just In
Parastoo Ganjei
Parastoo explains:
"Roses are the protagonists in my paintings and they are the main inspiration for my work. For me, painting roses is the best way to express my own deep feelings about life. The impact of my paintings is determined by the tension between the figure’s physical presence and the spatial flatness of the setting, between realism and abstraction, between impression and expression.
The figures are forcefully defined and positioned three-dimensionally in a setting free of other details to achieve maximum impact with minimum effort.
I paint the roses from different angles, as if they might be engaged in a ceremonial ritual, demanding the viewer’s attention. The bright light gives colours an almost transparent quality, revealing their sensuality and allowing the petals to dance freely in the air. The background merges into a distribution of colour and the landscape is transformed into abstract patterns, with simplification of an artistic strategy creating a sense of majesty.
My paintings are ephemeral portrayals of the rose, whose short life is intertwined with mine.
What really concerns me above else is expression. Expression for me is not merely a question of passion that might be visible, it is the entirety of the painting of the figures with space around them, contributing to the whole. The tension may still remain unresolved in the same way as I imagine Monet might have felt about his paintings of water lilies."
Of Persian heritage, Parastoo Ganjei comes from an artistic family, with a grandfather who was a prominent painter in Iran. Parastoo studied fine art in Iran, Sussex and Dorset and now exhibits widely around the UK.
To view all available paintings by Parastoo please click here