Apr 08, 2016
All images are copyrighted © by Henrietta Dubrey and may not be used without her consent.
Front cover: Summer Bride oil on canvas 119 x 87 cm
Private View Saturday 28 March 6-‐8pm Exhibition continues 29 March – 18 April 2015 Exhibition previews in London at AAF Battersea 12-‐16 March 2015 Contact the gallery for tickets RSVP for the private view to [email protected] Edgar Modern Bartlett Street Bath BA1 2EE 01225 443746 / 07940 597757
Henrietta Dubrey Rough Deluxe: Sweet Candy and Wild Women
Weekend Lover oil on canvas 17 x 21 cm
‘My work is generally described as abstract, although I would describe my paintings as autobiographical deconstructions and reconstructions of life. These ideas appear on the canvas surface often as an abstract gestural web, occasionally tangled, occasionally bold and resolved. An iconic form is liberated from a void into being.’
-‐Henrietta Dubrey
Henrietta Dubrey is a painter. She lives and works at the westernmost point of England at the tip of Cornwall, known as West Penwith. Sussex born, Dubrey was drawn to the area by its rich heritage of art and especially that of the post-‐war St Ives mid-‐generation artists such as Roger Hilton, Patrick Heron, Terry Frost, Peter Lanyon and Brian Wynter who followed in the footsteps of Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth. After a brief spell living in France following postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy Schools in London 1989-‐92, it was the light, art and space which convinced Dubrey that this was the place to live and work. ‘Rough Deluxe: Sweet Candy and Wild Women’, Dubrey’s solo exhibition at Edgar Modern Bath 28th March to 11th April, previewed at the Affordable Art Fair Battersea 12th to 15th March, is an exciting new body of work encompassing both abstract and figurative works. The bold, vibrant abstracts with their more organic compositions provide the 'Sweet Candy' element. The jewel-‐like colours and simple shapes lure, tempt and demand attention, and contrast with the rougher element of 'Wild Women'. Together they portray decadent painterly abstraction, indicating luxury and the necessary understanding that accompanies such work, inspired from the multifarious plethora of images and texts which we are confronted with on a daily basis.
Henrietta Dubrey Rough Deluxe : Sweet Candy and Wild Women
Black Jack Sherbet oil on canvas 130 x 105 cm
In Touch oil on canvas 67 x 52 cm
Arcadia oil on canvas 122 x 93 cm
Full Volume oil on canvas 37 x 28 cm
Oracle oil on canvas 130 x 105 cm
Haymarket oil on canvas 130 x 105 cm
Coco oil on canvas 18 x 17 cm
Fall oil on canvas 130 x 105 cm
Marathon oil on canvas 41 x 33 cm
Macaroon oil on canvas 23 x 19 cm
Palomino oil on canvas 130 x 105 cm
Amazon oil on canvas 62 x 47 cm
Gnossienne No 5 oil on canvas 63 x 83 cm
Eye Candy oil on canvas 75 x 49 cm
Ace oil on canvas 64 x 49 cm
Changing Room oil on canvas 66 x 49 cm
Au Point oil on canvas 105 x 130 cm
Showdown oil on canvas 130 x 105 cm
Lolly oil on canvas 20 x 15 cm
Pastille oil on canvas 20 x 17 cm
On Right: Liquorice Dilemma
oil on canvas 130 x 105 cm
Sense oil on canvas 135 x 100 cm
Sweet Honey oil on canvas 25 x 25 cm
Rhapsody oil on canvas 130 x 105 cm
Turn It On oil on canvas 130x 105 cm
Love Has No Ending oil on canvas 46 x 35 cm
Sweet Candy oil on canvas 116 x 88 cm
Red Bikini oil on canvas 120 x 97 cm
Gnossienne No 1 oil on canvas 70 x 92 cm
Nike oil on canvas 76 x 64 cm
Too Fat But Brilliant oil on canvas 73 x 57 cm
Divine oil on canvas 62 x 49 cm
First Love oil on canvas 31 x 25 cm
Elucidate oil on canvas 130x 105 cm
Turn It Up oil on canvas 61 x 49 cm
On Left: Al Fresco
oil on canvas 130 x 105 cm
Petra oil on canvas 26 x 19 cm
Modernist oil on canvas 119 x 97 cm
Selected Solo Exhibitions : 2000 to Present
2014 Abstraction – New paintings from Cornwall, Chapel Place Gallery, Tunbridge Wells
Interim: A Virtual Exhibition, Edgar Modern, Bath 2013 Fifteen New Paintings, Edgar Modern, Bath 2012 Developing Horizons, Edgar Modern, Bath 2011 Henrietta Dubrey at Skandium, London From Abstraction… Edgar Modern, Bath 2007 Colour to White, Belgrave Gallery, St Ives Lynne Strover Gallery Fen Ditton Cambridge 2005 Paintings, Belgrave Gallery, St Ives Cornwall 2004 New Work, Belgrave Gallery, St Ives Cornwall 2003 Lynne Strover Gallery, Fen Ditton Cambridge 2002 Recent Paintings Belgrave, Gallery St Ives, Cornwall 2001 Star Gallery, Lewes East Sussex
Collections De Beers London The Old Bank Hotel Oxford Twofour Group Private collections in the UK and Europe
Bibliography White Paintings Artist’s self-‐published monograph 2007 St Ives 1975-‐2005 Art Colony in Transition by Peter Davies 2007 Artists in Britain Since 1945 David Buckman Art Dictionaries Ltd 2006
Henrietta Dubrey Interview with Abi Cush – February 2014
AC: What can audiences expect to see in this show? Is there any particular theme that is explored in the paintings for Rough Deluxe? HD: They will see the dichotomy between my abstract genre and my figurative works, whilst at the same time, by being given the chance to see the works side by side in an exhibition space, to read the similarities in the mark-making that make the paintings work together and cohere to make an overall picture of my current oeuvre.
Rough Deluxe explores the themes of our over materialistic society in the abstracts, which consist of bright, colour saturated canvasses. Bold compositions vying for attention and sparkling attractively, to be seen as beautiful objects in their own right, contrast with everyday life and its internal and external influences which seep into our subconscious, in the figure paintings. AC: Where do you find inspiration for the figures in your work? Do you work from life or from other sources? HD: I have been drawing and painting figures for as long as I can remember. I rarely work from life. It is something I am considering doing again. Having spent three years at the Royal Academy Schools in London the importance of this study is deeply embedded in my psyche. The discipline taught at the RA was intense and fulfilling and something which I miss. I remember as a child I was rather obsessed by the naked figure and used to fill sketchbooks with rather elongated pencil studies of female nudes. Maybe it was a way of coming to terms with one’s own physical development, but it was also a way of fantasising about an adult world and the romantic view one often assumes will arrive with maturity.
So in reality the inspiration for my figures still comes mainly from my imagination and is strongly driven by the
way it feels to embody a body, and the spirit of the mind, especially in the paintings I consider to be autobiographical or self-portraits such as in ‘Sense’ (2014).
The more narrative iconic figures, which may or may not be clothed, are most probably informed by my looking
at paintings, painters, art history, magazines, photographs, films and ‘cultural’ videos. Anything from Keith Vaughans’s neo-Romantic male nudes which veer towards cubism, to William Scott’s female nudes, Picasso’s figures, which developed and changed so much over his lifetime, and De Kooning’s series on women, are all food for thought. AC: In your writing about the exhibition you mention decadence and luxury, what is it that draws you to these things? HD: I think that the location where I have chosen to live and work is physically quite remote from the hustle and bustle of, say, London and the Continent. There is a certain ‘mainstream’ culture that one can feel slightly starved of, removed from at times.
Visits to London and favourite haunts such as Soho and the area surrounding the Royal Academy are a necessity for me, and I cherish these visits to use as inspiration back in the studio, by way of the photographs I take and the catalogues, postcards and speciality goods one can procure from the adventure.
Bookshops and newsagents and the proliferation of magnificently produced magazines can bring elements of luxury and decadence straight to your home. The ideas, the glamour and the freedom to express are endlessly explored. These magazines surround me in the studio; I can dip in and in a moment be transported to another world, of an artist, a composer, a poet, writer, photographer or a fashion designer. In this respect I think that luxury and the need to dream can somehow seem closer than it might do in reality, and that that in itself is a powerful resource. The elements of decadence in my work questions whether indeed we should seek the luxury which is portrayed, or whether advertising makes us greedy for newness just for its own sake. AC: Do you have any particular attitude towards the history of the representation of the female figure? Does this inform your painting? HD: The female figure has been represented in art in so many different forms, and it would be impossible to deny that influence on my own work. I once wrote an extended essay on the myth of the Mother Goddess, and have always felt an affiliation with very early representations of woman such as the Venus of Willendorf c.25000 BC. The powerfully depicted sexual attributes of this and other small sculptures emphasise their fertility and voluptuousness.
Whether photographically or abstractly represented, the female nude finds infinite ways of exploring the self, and
it is hardly a new thing that women’s sexuality is explored. Cecily Brown, another figurative painter, learned from Picasso, Bonnard, Bacon and Schiele that ‘art can be rude, outrageous, sexy, nasty’. It takes a lot of nerve to paint “shocking” paintings; I feel it is a very valid field and one that I would like to explore more. AC: Are you influenced by the work of any other artists? HD: Very much so, and I think that it would be a very unusual artist who wasn’t influenced by what other creatives have made. It definitely goes in phases as to who I’m looking at the most, at any one time. If I’m stuck for inspiration, artists I consider to be real ‘painters’, big names for me, are Roger Hilton, Terry Frost, Patrick Heron, Brian Wynter, Robert Motherwell, Willem De Kooning and Joan Mitchell, and they never fail to excite on the abstract front. Recently I’ve been looking more closely at the figurative work of painters such as Cecily Brown, John Currin, Chantal Joffe and Marlene Dumas. AC: I notice that you have focused on the female nude in this set of new work, what is it that makes your women ‘wild’? HD: The fact that they are nude or scantily clad makes me like to believe that they are all slightly ‘wild’ by nature. The general abandon of the nudes, their poses (often they have a breast exposed), reveal a decadent yet liberated statement. They are all a bit unkempt; naïve individuals.
They can be based on myself, females I know well, or stereotypes, and sometimes a combination of all three. The painting in this exhibition that strikes me as the most ‘wild’ is ‘Oracle’. She is strong, individualistic and fairly frightening in her overall demeanour. Her parted lips reveal her teeth and the interior of her mouth. Is she speaking? What is she saying? She has her hair formally arranged, her hand to her face. She is expressive in her gaze, her palette sullen and muted, and her rawness is emphasised by the roughly painted earthy ground. She asks questions. Is she femme fatale, beauty, wife, lover? She is archetypal, she could be so many things.
AC: You describe your paintings as “autobiographical deconstructions and reconstructions of life.” How do you think this idea comes out in your work? HD: This is often quoted when people look at my work; I wrote it a while back but I believe the general premise remains. All the paintings I create I see as autobiographical to a certain extent. I create them as a response to what is occurring in my life, what I’m looking at, reading, writing, and experiencing on a personal level.
I’ll often start a painting by making a mark on the canvas, having no clear idea as to what the outcome will be.
When the painting is eventually finished, which can be quite immediate or not, I can be surprised and excited when it reveals some sort of poignant truth about how I feel about something. In this sense there is deconstructing, and recreation, a new life or opinion expressed. AC: What influence does fashion have on your work? HD: I certainly would not count myself as a fashionista, but I do love to look at fashion and I’m interested especially, now that I am getting older, to see how it reinvents itself. I find glossy magazines and advertising campaigns tremendously seductive; often they have great use of artwork in them.
Last year’s Prada SS14 campaign and catwalk show was another highlight. Painters were commissioned to paint
the sets with enormous canvasses providing a striking backdrop to the models, the painters themselves having inspired the collection with their oversized, stylised faces. In 2014 I, in turn, painted paintings in response to this, ‘Future Great’, ‘Flower Girl’ and ‘Backstage’. I’ll look out for painterly influences that occur in these types of promotions. AC: I am interested in your practice as a full-time artist, what drives you to paint? HD: A strong part of what drives me to paint is the constant absorption of things I find interesting, and my desire then to create my own view or approach by return.
The desire to draw and paint has been with me for as long as I can remember. I have always had a sketchbook to
hand to jot down and record ideas. One of the most fundamental reasons is, that I love to paint. I love what I do and I feel very lucky that I am able to call myself a full time painter. The freedom to create and inspire other people to look drives me, as do new ideas and the excitement of not knowing necessarily what you are going to create. I do believe that you have to be passionate about what you do..
I paint as a means of interacting with the world. It is my form of communication. For me, it flows more fluently than speech or the written word. It is a powerful force and it is tremendous when people can read your work and actively engage and respond to it. AC: Have you taken part in any interesting exhibitions recently? HD: I was selected to show a painting in last year’s National Open Art Competition. The painting exhibited was ‘Odyssey’ which was one of the five large canvasses I painted as part of a series called ‘Interim’ which was showcased at Edgar Modern last August. The five large abstracts all had the same dimension, and they have all gone their separate ways! ‘Odyssey’ visited Somerset House in London and then the Minerva Theatre in Chichester and was shown amongst what I felt was a very strong show. As Gavin Turk commented, it is ‘The Best Open Art Competition in the U.K.’
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