CELIA BENNETT | MICHAEL BENNETT
New Paintings
10 July – 2 August 2008

As one of our occasional series of co-curated exhibitions the Eagle Gallery is delighted to present New Paintings by Celia Bennett and Michael Bennett, in association with James Windsor.

The exhibition draws together two individual bodies of work – a group of portraits and two large-scale installations of multiple canvases, which repeat and modulate a single image of a tree.

Celia Bennett’s small scale, delicately painted portraits present faces caught on the cusp of adolescence, their outward gaze directed towards the viewer. Some are invested with the poise and light of Renaissance painting or echo classical idealisations of an ageless beauty but these sitters are also entirely contemporary in their awareness of the scrutiny upon them. Windsor writes, the artist ‘gives her characters grace, grace to be themselves and put us on the spot as we search and seek and simply take pleasure in the glance …’

Michael Bennett’s monumental Sanctuary, presents 24 images of a leafless tree trunk that form an encompassing grid, which moves between figurative representation and a more abstract play of form and painted texture.

In his catalogue text for Sanctuary and Solitude: The Paintings of Michael Bennett Christopher Bucklow explores how the individual images act as metaphorical forms, which stand for both the artist and the viewer. As a whole the grid becomes a more organic and fluctuating entity: ‘For the experience of comparison between the individual paintings produces a heightened awareness of the emotional qualities of each. This is not unlike the experience of music, each note or chord taking its precise feel from its neighbours.’ The process of painting is fast, with alterations made across the individual images in a ‘headlong cascade of change’ and the play of light and colour in the unsubstantial mists and vapours around the trees produces a sense of flux - a consciousness of the flow of time.

Connections occur in the conjunctions of these two artists’ works in the ‘after’ readings of their images. Michael Bennett’s forests of paintings with their emblematic and solitary trees, reflect the topography of the artist’s mind and evoke a pressing sense of human transience. Celia Bennett’s clear-eyed youths, both archetypal and individual, seem on the verge of entering this expansive landscape of consciousness. Little Red Riding Hood goes into the woods …

For further information, catalogue or images please contact Emma Hill or Bridget Symonds on + 44 (0) 207 833 2674 or email: info@emmahilleagle.com

Gallery opening hours:
Wed – Fri 11 – 6pm, Sat 11 – 4pm
Closed during August