Luminous at Benjamin Rhodes Arts, East London, December 2023 –  Final show of the year at the rather intimate reassuringly old school East London gallery, a two artist show taking us to the end of ’23 and positively on into the light of the new year. The gallery, found in that intriguing gap between the former art stronghold that was Redchurch Street and the beauty of Arnold Circus, has been a consistently rewarding space this year with a number of strong exhibitions. This current exhibition, Luminous, goes on way into February so you still have plenty of time to catch it and yes, I must admit I still haven’t worked to why shows in the smaller galleries need to last quite so long? Did ask this in a preview of Luminouson these pages a couple of weeks ago and as I said then, who am I to question these things? Actually a gallery owner who had read that preview did indeed rather indignantly ask who I was to question how things work at galleries (not the owner of this particular gallery I might add). I don’t know? Surely a month is long enough then change the walls, inject some much needed energy? Okay so this one is straddling the Christmas holidays so it is, I guess, a little more justified but is it me or are galleries being even more conservative and all by the establishment book than ever at the moment? Oh the frustration of being an East London artist now most of the DIY spaces where we could just get on with doing it ourselves have gone. Yes, I know this show has a Christmas break in the middle but surely everyone who wants to see it will have done so in December or by the end of January? Enough of this moaning about galleries and this space, it has to be said, is one of the more artist-friendly more rewarding East London spaces, always worth checking out. There was an excellent Tricia Gillman exhibition here earlier in the year that was one of the highlights of 2023, and this isn’t the first time Richard Kenton Webb has shown here this year. 

A two artist show called Luminous, two painters, two properly proper (dare I say old school) painters and the anticipation of light, colour and imagination. Richard Kenton Webb and Emrys Williams together for an exhibition that started back in early December and will run until 17th February. As soon as you enter the space there’s an attention demanding “yes!” moment and a triptych of Richard Kenton Webb paintings  that immediately hit you. there they are to the left of the door and from that moment, that first encounter with the three closely hung rich green pieces, you just know this is going to be a good show.

Do like Richard’s use of colour as well as the way he works the paint, none of his greens ever seem that obvious, his paint always applied with commitment. Yes, it is massively bout his commitment to painting, about the actual act of painting, We’ve covered Plymouth-based painter Richard Kenton Webb already in 2023, this is his second show in this Shoreditch space this year, I like his dedication to painting, his self declared belief in paint and all it stands for, I just really like his paintings. 

“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,  he says his paintings are about longing, that they are in an emotional space, that they come with an element of what artist and writer Lawrence Gowing termed “wish fulfilment”, Williams goes on to explain  that wish fulfilment was a phrase he remembered Gowing often used in his Slade lectures. There’s some intriguing Larger paintings that 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.” Do like that owl, have been wondering about that owl since the show, really like that owl and where it sits on the canvas, and the red yacht that keeps appearing in pieces.

Do like the way these two (proper) painters work together, do like this almost defiant exhibition of paintings, do like that the two of them – who have apparently knows each other and shown together since the 80’s – have very little in common and yet have so much in common and I do like the way this show is hung. There’s something reassuring about Luminous, did I already say that? Do like that both painters have pieces that you can read, that you can find things in, that throw up questions you really want to walk over and ask them (both artists are here tonight and more than happy to talk) yet you don’t want to let anyone or anything do the talking besides the paintings themselves. Not that the work of either artist is wanting reveal all, this feels like a show you could visit again and again and find more and more in the work of both artists each time. There’s a depth here. It isn’t anything revolutionary, it isn’t a boundary pushing show, it probably isn’t really a challenging show, it is almost a defiant show, a stand made for painting, a no you’re not brushing us painters under the carpet kind of show and that is what’s almost cool about it all, the fact that this is the most uncool of old school proper exhibitions, a show that doesn’t need to make any big claims or statements, that doesn’t need to attack anything, and exhibition that doesn’t need to declare anything else besides itself irrelevant. There are galleries in this town who will tell you every other gallery and ever other artist and show besides theirs is of no importance, none of that is needed here,  No, this is just a really really (really) good exhibition of new work by two very rewarding artists, two very proper painters and I for one highly recommend it.          

Benjamin Rhodes Arts is at 62 Old Nichol Street, London E2 7HP. The show runs from 8th December until 22nd December and then 3rd January until 17th February  The gallery is open Wednesday to Saturday Midday until 6pm.

Previously on these pages

ORGAN THING: Richard Kenton Webb at Benjamin Rhodes Arts. Painting as subversion? The great other? Paintings clever enough to not need to…

ORGAN THING: Tricia Gillman, Moment Fields at Benjamin Rhodes Arts – the tiny details feel important, the layers beneath, the things you almost sense rather than see. This, for more than one reason, is a rather recommended exhibition…

As always, do click on an image to enlarge, see the whole image or t orun the slie show…