FRITH ANGELL

This painting was made of a friend of mine in his room. He has just returned from work, his boots are on the floor, and he is reading a history of Switzerland. Perhaps he has forgotten his cup of tea on the table beside him as he reads. I wanted to convey a sense of the space of the room, its atmosphere, textures and colours and in particular the weighty, human presence of my friend as he relaxes after a long day. It is significant that this painting was made from direct observation, as what excites me about painting and drawing is watching the surprising-ness of individual moments in life as they pass, seemingly insignificant ones which are, when one deeply looks, imbued with deep feeling and excitement in every flicker of light and movement.

After the sudden death of my grandmother, witnessing the poignant act of my grandfather making his bed with just one pillow, moved me to create a series of “Bedsheet Elegies.” While the act of painting served as a form of grieving for me, the work itself aims to evoke a simultaneous absence and presence of bodies, and how presence is often most keenly felt in absence.

Banana Republic forms part of a series by the artist titled: The Rotary Paintings. These, form a significant body of work which James Capper has been developing since working in isolation in his studio during the first national lockdown. Engaging with the artist’s experiments in mark-making and hydraulic sculpture, the Rotary Paintings are created using the Hydra Painter – a hydraulic painting machine. The first iteration of Hydra Painter, built in 2015, is a basic machine consisting of a small square table with a hole in the middle to allow the spindle of a hydraulic motor through it, attached to which is a beam with paint rollers affixed to it. Despite initial successful tests, Hydra Painter was packed away and sat in storage until Capper rediscovered the machine in March 2020, when the idea to make the Rotary Paintings was born from the repetitiveness of daily routine and the blurring of indefinite days under lockdown.

CAROLINE COOLIDGE

Recently, I have found myself manipulating the silkscreen. I am interested in the blur between this serigraphic process, image production, and painting. In the creation of this work, I utilised unstretched screen printing mesh, which acted as a mediator and a sieve by which I painted with and against. The screen becomes my subject as I break down the screen printing process and reconsider how images are built and mass-produced. Traditionally this printmaking technique is intended to generate images on a mass scale. I work with the screen in such a way that the images cannot become multiple, but have the potential to hold and alter a memory of the previous image as the work shifts from print to painting. Through dismantling the productive print, I take a countering stance, question mechanisation, and investigate how mass production and technology (both analogue and digital) have come to shape how space is understood and how the human is implicated within this. I utilise and play with flattening, but when approached on a more intimate level, this takes on a resonance of depth within the aftermath of collapse. By being visually subdued and non- didactic, my work allows for meditation around memory shifting within screen-generated space. In the process, the silkscreen becomes a metaphor for the computer and phone screens that dominate contemporary life and constantly create new realities, shaping memories, and redefining truth.

VANESSA ENDELEY

This painting depicts a young man wearing a vibrant mustard sweater and a pair of tan slacks, tucked delicately into his waist tie are a bunch of long stemmed purple flowers, some of which partially cover his face. The man is seated with a stoic expression and relaxed demeanour, coupled with his hands being gently crossed, this entire piece explores the depths of black masculinity, especially, regarding the younger generation. George illustrates this with a traditionally ‘feminine’ colour story consisting of magenta hues and body language as the main communicators. The direct juxtaposition between the lively hot pink background and the almost subdued expression of the man are one of the many contrasts within the painting. This falls in line with the rest of George’s portfolio, further dismantling the monolithic portrayal of the black population in the media.

PAUL MAJEK

VITTORIO DA MOSTO

LYDIA SMITH

CHENGWEI XIA

When I was a child, I often found a mushroom that looked a bit like bamboo fungus in the bamboo forest in my hometown. It usually appeared in the morning when there was a bright starry sky the night before. The local name for this mushroom is “Xingxuan’er shit”, which means star shit. There is such a corresponding relationship between the small mushrooms and the vast starry sky in the hearts of local people, as if the stars are not so far away. In this drawing, the stars are like seeds in the sky, growing out from the darkness. I made this drawing with inks and pigments I made from plants: hibiscus flowers and onion skins, and I also used walnut ink. Plants hold a special significance in my work, serving as a bridge between past and present, self and ancestry. Foraging, growing, or salvaging from food waste, each botanical element carries with it a lineage of cultivation and connection, linking me to my farming roots and the generations who tended the earth before me.

Society (2024) shows a Pekingese dog perched on an 18th century French style blue velvet cushion with Qing dynasty style fabric draped in the background.

The lapdog, also known as Pekinese, is a short-legged breed with long hair and a snub nose, originally bred in China to only be owned by members of the Chinese Imperial Palace. It was a precious bread in China during the Qing dynasty sharing the same social position as its owner, and as such, servants would have to bow to the dogs each time they saw one wondering about as they were allowed to. A British soldier, who came across a lone pekingese during the 1860 sacking of the Summer Palace in Beijing by the Anglo- French force successfully brought the dog back to England. It was the first of the breed to survive the voyage. The Pekingese was then presented Queen Victoria. After this more dogs appeared in Europe and were owned by aristocracy and politicians and exchanged as political gifts.

Society explores class and objectification through an animal. In creating this work I was thinking about how humans alter traditional portrait painting techniques as an expression of

the historical events that are still influencing our society today .