Coming up at Benjamin Rhodes Arts this week and for the rest of the year, opening on Thursday evening, Thursday 7th December and taking us into the light of the new year as far as the East London Gallery is concerned, way into February, I haven’t worked to why shows in the smaller galleries need to last quite so long, who am I to question these things? Surely a month then change the walls? This one should be good though, a two artist show called Luminous featuring two painters, two properly proper painters and the anticipation of light, colour and imagination. Richard Kenton Webb and Emrys Williams come together for a show that will run from 8th December until 17th February with a so called private view which you’re probably more than welcome to just walk in to on Thursday 7th, 6pm until 8.30pm.
We’ve covered Plymouth-based painter Richard Kenton Webb already, this is his second show in the space this year; “Approaching a new colour is like entering a nation. I already have a sense of its personality. I then discover unthought connections and conversations. Eventually an actual personality and voice emerges. So, who is greenness? Green is about the idea of language. Green is deep inside my memory, and yet it surprises me. I believe in painting, it is both ancient and contemporary, always a language outside of words. I am a vocational teacher. As an artist and academic, it is a way of life. Painting and teaching are like the ebb and flow of the tide. It is who I am. I follow my creator. I listen, wait, reflect, and dream. I listen to colour; I feel it and live inside of it by making this visual poetry.’
Emrys Williams is from Cardiff, ”Nightswimming” refers to the R.E.M. track. As with the song, the paintings are about longing and are an emotional space, with an element of what artist and writer Lawrence Gowing termed “wish fulfilment”, a phrase I remember he often used in his Slade lectures. Larger paintings such as “City Dwelling” and “Studio by the sea.” These depict a collection of objects incorporating spatial displacement and ambiguous juxtapositions; they are like private allegories concerning my own studio spaces, the idea of home and the city at night.’
Benjamin Rhodes Arts, 62 Old Nichol Street, London E2 7HP. The show runs from 8th December until 22nd December and then 3rd January until 17th February with an opening with both artists present on Thursday 7th December (6pm until 8.30pm. There’s a second late viewing on 13th December with both artists The gallery is open Wednesday to Saturday Midday until 6pm.
Previously on these pages
THE ORGAN 