BAROQUE
James Fisher / Giulia Zaniol

31 January - 23 February 2008

BAROQUE brings together two young artists who explore themes of identity and displacement, through a use of figurative imagery that combines intense colouration and layers of decorative pattern.

James Fisher shows large scale paintings on paper which feature a single exotic figure 'trapped' in a ground that is built up by recurrent stencilled motifs. 'Conflagration' shows the outline of a Chinese student caught within a blue/green background of flying doves (an image derived from news reportage of the massacre in Tianamen Square). 'Extreme Sadness', a work that combines different shades of intense oranges, presents a Sikh musician playing cymbals. The initially vibrant effect of the painting gives way to a sense of profound isolation, its meanings left open and undefined. In addition to the works on paper Fisher shows a unique bookwork Winterreise, made during a residency at Worcester Cathedral in 2006. The book weaves various strands of references, from Franz Schubert's song cycle to Wim Wenders' Paris Texas, into a volume that echoes the form and organisation of a Northern illuminated manuscript.

Fisher completed an MA at the Royal College of Art in 1997 and was awarded an Abbey Scholarship in Painting at the British School at Rome in 2001. He has exhibited regularly since 2005 and recently had a painting purchased by the Jerwood Foundation for their permanent collection.

Giulia Zaniol was born in Venice and comes from a family who printed for Canaletto. She completed an MA in Printmaking at Camberwell College of Arts in 2006 and subsequently won the Clifford Chance Purchase Award, The Printmakers Council Prize and the Birgit Skiold Award for her work.

Zaniol's sequence of etching / chin collé images explore the decay of her once proud birth place. She shows the architectural marvel of Venice eroded by time and tourists, sea vistas dominated by cruise ships, palazzos turned into vulgar hotel rooms.
Her work eulogises the faded beauty of the city - sumptuous surfaces of magenta, purple and pink are overprinted with line plates of gold. Pattern is used both to decorate but also to encroach over these grounds - campos become claustrophobic and famous vistas are shown as hallucinatory spaces.

For further information or images please contact Emma Hill or Bridget Symonds at the Eagle Gallery on 020 7833 2674 or email : emmahilleagle@aol.com