Richard Kenton Webb, Passion drawings and English Iconoclasm paintings at Benjamin Rhodes Arts – Richard Kenton Webb’s drawings and paintings are always intriguing, his use of colour (the colour of the paint used is always important in Richard’s work), Richard Kenton Webb’s drawings and paintings are always intriguing in the way they wish to be read.
This time we find a small gallery packed with “twenty four drawings about Love” as well as some very English iconoclastic paintings that do rather take the breath as soon as you walk in; it is a rather exciting full-bodied floor-to-ceiling hang and I was rather looking forward to this show and the invitation to “immerse in this important display covering resilience, faith, our own visual culture and its history”. Whenever I go to one of Richard’s shows he always asks me if I have any questions, I always reply I don’t, but of course I have many many questions, I just don’t really want the answers to come from Richard though, I’d rather the (hints of) answers come directly from the pieces themselves or at least from the conversations they have with each other.
There something rather special here in this body of work, these (extremely) intriguing drawings and paintings, in Richard Kenton Webb’s very deliberate very considered use of colour as well as his strong sense of time and place (especially place). There are many questions, there are always questions, this time the most obvious probably is “who is this?”. I like that the twenty four substantial drawings (from 2021) are deliberately unlabelled in terms of the actual exhibition, that it is all about you reading the actual work rather than the title; the pieces are titled in the accompanying book, a book I haven’t read yet, I’m itching to, wanted to throw some words together here first, then I can find a quite space somewhere and just read the words and (re-read) the work (and then go to the show again I expect)
“My most recent show at Benjamin Rhodes Arts is about my personal passion and journey from despair to hope. I found healing by completing these Passion drawings” so says Richard: yes, you could (very easily) argue there’s healing in his paintings, his work does constantly uplift, I always feel refreshed after a Richard Kenton Webb show, after time spent with his paintings (and his thoughts on painting), it isn’t that they challenge (although they do), it isn’t that they inspire although they probably do, it is that they renew your faith in the actual act of painting, the practice, the point of it all, that it is (maybe) all worth it.
I don’t have any great religious faith, this show does feel strongly religious in as almost traditional sense, I find other things here though, personal things and not just from the point of view of a painter looking at the work of a fellow painter. This is a show about questions, about discovery, about the act of creativity, of celebration. There is the question of “The age of English iconoclasm” and, as Richard puts it; “the period 1540 to 1660 was the age of English iconoclasm. Throughout these years, it would have been idolatry or heresy to make such an image. I would have been arrested and possibly burnt alive for making this work”.
The twenty four “Passion” drawings have “come out of this same empathetic visual tradition of re-imagining God’s self-sacrifice by placing myself inside of it. I am trying to make sense of my own experiences and this violent world of the 21st century where human beings are capable of so much hatred. Julian of Norwich’s Revelation of Love (1343-1416) has been a great solace. Her ‘showings’ give optimism to myself and many others. Ultimately, I find such hope in the narrative of God’s Passion. I want others to be inspired by this act of love” – and even though I don’t have a religious bone in my body, it is hard not to feel the passion here and although I’m probably not going to read the visuals in their purist form and then go on the invited journey, there is a journey to go on here though, there is so much here and on many levels. The commitment to drawing and painting, just the commitment, the act of commitment and so much more, so much more than just passion… (sw)
Benjamin Rhodes Arts is at 62 Old Nichol Street, London E2 7HP. The gallery is open Wednesday to Saturday Midday until 6pm. Richard Kenton Webb’s exhbition runs until 27th June 2026.
The book / Richard Kenton Webb
Previously –
As always, do click on an image to see the whole thing or to run the slideshow
THE ORGAN 