MARK SPRAY Until the light fails

Transcription

1 MARK SPRAY

2 MARK SPRAY Until the light fails 12 September 4 October 2015 First published in 2015 by Campden Gallery Ltd High Street, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire GL55 6AG All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electrical, mechanical or otherwise, without first seeking the permission of the copyright owners and the publishers. All images in this catalogue are protected by copyright and should not be reproduced without permission of the copyright holder. Details of the copyright holder to be obtained from Campden Gallery. Copyright 2015 Campden Gallery Ltd. Photography: Steve Tanner ISBN: Cover: Before them nothing 80 x 80 cm oil and mixed media on canvas

3 MARK SPRAY: Until the Light Fails WG Sebald s eloquent book The Rings of Saturn was the starting point for an extended walk through Suffolk which inspired this new collection of works. At once fiction, memoir, biography and travelogue, Sebald s writings wander the low lands of East Anglia in an unhindered narrative style that ebbs and flows through accounts of people, stories, thoughts and places. Informed by the landscape, the experience of walking and his own five senses, Sebald s melancholic words paint a sensory and aesthetic whole as the author experiences the familiar, yet incongruous nature of the subjective self in time and place, and the cognitive dissonance of the uncanny. Taking this book as a framework to explore an as yet undiscovered country Spray carried with him his sketchbook and his own existential experience, walking 120 miles through the Suffolk landscape. Beginning at sunrise and sleeping wherever he found himself as the day s light failed, he spent long nights of contemplation in deep woods, a cell-like bird hide, open fields and on shingled beaches. Immersed in self, sense and environment, each step of his walk defined an ongoing dialogue between writer and artist, between artist and landscape: starting out from Somerleyton train station, Spray took in the coastal town of Lowestoft, the once fresh waters of Benacre Broad now invaded by the advancing salted sea, on to the hamlet of Covehithe, to Southwold, over the River Blyth and down to Dunwich, where coastal erosion continues its triumphant march and over time twelve churches have been swallowed by the ocean. The second phase of the walk began in the town of Woodbridge, then on to the village of Orford and the bleak beauty of Orford Ness, a wide shingle spit at the mouth of the River Ore that was once a military testing site and Cold War defense installation, before heading north-west along the Roman road from Yoxford and finally back to Southwold s Gun Hill, overlooking the cold North Sea. Captured in the oil paint and mineral grit of Spray s mixed media work is the shifting beauty of this landscape and its unique exchange with both author and artist: the vivid purple heather and white sanded paths of Dunwich heath glow brightly under ominous skies; low, brooding cloud lines skim the damp, sea level land and sandbars break the grey reflective waters of sea and broad in two; strange, silent circles of concrete scar the requisitioned and ultimately abandoned shingle of a once unspoiled Orford Ness; bare and brittle trees reach from wet earth up towards wetter skies; the bruised clouds of an emerging storm intensify the grassy green of fields along the Roman road and will soon replenish puddles which soak colours from the rolling, humid atmosphere. Drawing together elements of experience, thought, perception and prose, this collection of oil sketch and large scale studio paintings, which are in part both documentary and autobiographical works, evidence the physically exhausting yet psychologically restorative nature of time spent in the landscape and seek, in their way, to locate beauty in the midst of melancholy. Mercedes Smith, August The nature of soil 80 x 80 cm oil and mixed media on canvas 2 3

4 The order of things 60 x 72 cm oil and mixed media on canvas Through the earth like the current of life that runs through the earth 60 x 60 cm oil and mixed media on canvas 4 5

5 The wind sweeping in from the country 36 x 41 cm oil and mixed media on canvas Dispelling the emptiness 80 x 120 cm oil and mixed media on canvas 6 7

6 Passage of time 40 x 40 cm oil and mixed media on canvas Gone without a trace 40 x 40 cm oil and mixed media on canvas 8 9

7 The shadow of night 44 x 62 cm oil and mixed media on canvas The denial of time 80 x 80 cm oil and mixed media on board 10 11

8 Surge of light 36 x 41 cm oil and mixed media on canvas Memory fails us 70 x 80 cm oil and mixed media on canvas 12 13

9 Solitary 150 x 180 cm oil and mixed media on canvas 14 15

10 Into the depths 60 x 60 cm oil and mixed media on canvas Murmur 80 x 80 cm oil and mixed media on canvas 16 17

11 Into eternity 40 x 40 cm oil and mixed media on canvas Consciousness veiled 70 x 100 cm oil and mixed media on canvas 18 19

12 Natural possibilities 36 x 41 cm oil and mixed media on canvas Sense of being 36 x 41 cm oil and mixed media on canvas Clouding the eye 80 x 80 cm oil and mixed media on canvas 20 21

13 Passing through an undiscovered country 45 x 120 cm oil and mixed media on canvas Out of place 70 x 100 cm oil and mixed media on canvas 22 23

14 Dissolved into water, sand and thin air 26 x 35 cm oil and mixed media on canvas All the air beyond 26 x 35 cm oil and mixed media on canvas Before the break of day 35 x 105 cm oil and mixed media on canvas 24 25

15 The most sensitive heart 86 x 120 cm oil and mixed media on canvas 26 27

16 On the other side 40 x 64 cm oil and mixed media on canvas Profound silence 57 x 80 cm oil and mixed media on canvas 28 29

17 Presence 16 x 20 cm oil and mixed media on board Leaden and unreal 16 x 20 cm oil and mixed media on board Away in the distance 16 x 20 cm oil and mixed media on board Into the distance 16 x 20 cm oil and mixed media on board 30 31

18 Listen to her silence 28 x 40 cm oil and mixed media on canvas All the air beyond 28 x 40 cm oil and mixed media on canvas Storm filled air 86 x 120 cm oil and mixed media on canvas 32 33

19 Stretching away 16 x 20 cm oil and mixed media on board Under one sky 16 x 20 cm oil and mixed media on board Grace and providence 16 x 20 cm oil and mixed media on board Heavy with cloud 16 x 20 cm oil and mixed media on board 34 35

20 Open up 16 x 20 cm oil and mixed media on board Solitary way 16 x 20 cm oil and mixed media on board MARK SPRAY 1973 Born Heanor, Derbyshire Manchester Metropolitan University Sculptural Assistant Goldsmiths College, London. Solo exhibitions 2014 Radley College Camphor A Lawrentian Shadow, Campden Gallery Sky diary, Great Atlantic Gallery, Falmouth, Cornwall. Sky diary, Truro Cathedral, Cornwall A Final Pilgrim, Campden Gallery Rare Earth Plateau Strata, The Great Atlantic Gallery, Cornwall. Weathering Dartmoor Tors Prometheus on his crag, Gallery SCA, Shrewbury. Plateau / Strata Paintings, Sir Terry Frost Gallery, Kings, Worcester Weathering Dartmoor Tors Prometheus on his crag, The Great Atlantic Gallery, Falmouth I ll Invite the Poets, The Great Atlantic Gallery, Falmouth. Unearth, The Great Atlantic Gallery, Falmouth Earthbound, The Great Atlantic Map Works Gallery, St Just. Selected group exhibitions 2013 Suspended Sentences, curated by Mark Spray & Jesse Leroy Smith, Turners Warehouse, Newlyn, Cornwall. The Discerning Eye, Mall Gallery, London. Invited artist by Liz Anderson, Arts Editor for The Spectator. Newlyn Art Gallery. Ren Fine Art, The Rose Theatre, St Marys, Ascot. Anniversary Exhibition, Reuben Colley Fine Arts Store Street Gallery, London. Summer Exhibition, Campden Gallery. 2nd Anniversary Exhibition, Reuben Colley Fine Art, Birmingham. Anonymous, Pydar Gallery, Cornwall. In support of the RNLI. Winter Exhibition, Campden Gallery. Small Paintings, Reuben Colley Fine Art, Birmingham Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London. Truro Three Arts. Eton College. Vista, Reuben Colley Fine Art, Birmingham. Great Atlantic Roadshow, St Mary s, Ascot Great Atlantic Roadshow, The Art Haus, Plymouth College. Great Atlantic Roadshow, St George s College, Weybridge.. Great Atlantic Roadshow, St John s, Leatherhead. Truro Three Arts, Truro, Cornwall. Great Atlantic Roadshow, Whitestone Gallery, York. Weathering Dartmoor Tors Prometheus on his crag, The Art Haus, Plymouth College. Winter Exhibition, Campden Gallery Deans Close, Cheltenham. Truro Three Arts, Truro, Cornwall. Autumn Exhibition, Gallery SCA, Shropshire. Art for all, Reeds, Cobham, Surrey. Strata Jurassic Coast, Floren Gallery, Dorset. Collected Works, King s College, Wimbledon, London. Art at the Cape All Shook up, Gallery SCA, Shrewsbury. Open Exhibition, The St Ives Society Of Artists. The road not taken, Wykeham Gallery, Stockbridge, Hampshire Preview of Unearth Project. Something old something new, St John s Leatherhead. New Contemporary works, presented to members of Truro Three Arts, Truro, Cornwall. Moorland Paintings, The Great Atlantic Gallery, Falmouth. Earthbound, Reeds, Cobham, Surrey. Curated exhibitions 2013 Suspended Sentences, fifty artists creating site-specific work responding to the poetry of Simon Armitage and the walk, housed in a disued fish processing warehouse in Newlyn, Cornwall. Publications 2013 Camphor A Lawrentian Shadow, exhibition catalogue, Campden Gallery A final pilgrim, exhibition catalogue, Campden Gallery Weathering Dartmoor Tors, Prometheus. 36

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