Tag Archives: contemporary painting

Art, exhibition, Joy C Martindale, New Work, painting

Birds Are The Opposite of Time

Birds Are The Opposite of Time (2022) by Joy C Martindale, Acrylic on Paper, 28x38cm

This is the companion piece to the work I showed in Material Presence Part 1 at Fitzrovia Gallery last week.  

It is part of a larger body of work called Birds Are The Opposite of Time  – a project I developed whilst listening to Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps (Quartet for The End of Time) by Olivier Messiaen. The work was composed in a prisoner of war camp in 1940 and was inspired by the Apocalypse as it is described in the Book of Revelation. The title, Birds are the Opposite of Time, is taken from Messiaen’s notes on part III of the work – Abyss of the Birds: ‘The Abyss, which is Time, with its sadness and weariness. The birds are the opposite of Time: they represent our desire for light, for stars, for rainbows and for jubilant song.’ Messiaen was a passionate ornithologist and in the same way he saw music and birds as being the opposite of time as it marks out the finiteness of life, I see artmaking as being the opposite. Painting is an expression of my inner life, which feels infinite in its formless constancy to my sense of being. 
I am seeking to create a feeling of vitality  and performance when I make a painting and I am driven by a sense of compulsion and necessity. Aspiring to develop new language I work in an exploratory way, learning as much from failures and mistakes as discoveries. 

The Finissage of Material Presence Part 2 is today, 26th November, 12-5pm at Fitzrovia Gallery and the last day of the exhibition is tomorrow (10am-3pm)  

The exhibition features paintings and sculpture by talented artists from the Turps Correspondence Course of 2021-2022

Material Presence
Fitzrovia Gallery
139 Whitfield St, 
London 
W1T 5EN

Birds Are The Opposite of Time (2022) by Joy C Martindale, Acrylic on paper

DM me for sales and exhibition enquiries

Standard
Art, exhibition, Joy C Martindale, New Work, painting

Material Presence

I’m really excited to be exhibiting in Material Presence, which opens today at Fitzrovia Gallery!

The exhibition features contemporary paintings and sculpture by talented artists from the Turps Correspondence Course of 2021-2022.

Material Presence

Fitzrovia Gallery
139 Whitfield St, London W1T 5EN

Part 1: 15th-20th November
Finissage 19th November 12-5pm

Part 2: 22nd-27th November
Finissage 26th November 12-5pm

For more exhibition information: www.instagram.com/materialpresence

Birds Are The Opposite of Time by Joy C Martindale, Acrylic on Paper, 28x38cm
Standard
Art, Event, exhibition, Joy C Martindale, painting

Group Show at Nunnery Gallery

Save The Date!

Coming very soon: I will be showing new work in a group show at Nunnery Gallery 🦜

In Response 

31/08/2021 – 05/09/2021

Nunnery Gallery
181 Bow Road, London, E3 2SJ

Private View: Thursday 2nd September 6-9pm

🦜In Response is the first group show of new paintings by 29 London artists from the 2020/21 Turps Correspondence Course.🦜

See gallery website for exhibition opening times http://www.bowarts.org

@bowarts

#contemporaryart#contemporarypainting#contemporarybritishpainting
#newwork#londonartshow#paintingshow#arte#galerie#gallery#artcollector#artintheUK#londonart#freeentrylondon#firstthursday#newexhibition#paintingtoday#Nunnery

Standard
Discussion, Joy C Martindale, New Work, painting

Plumb Line

Image 1: Untitled by Joy C Martindale (April 2021), acrylic on paper, 36x26cm

Looking at this painting sketch I am reminded of Joan Mitchell. In many of her works you will find a central trunk like form and growing out from this limbs of paint that are comparable to the boughs of a tree. 

Consider for example Bracket (by Joan Mitchell, 1989). Prudence Peiffer describes this set of relationships and their effect aptly as ‘like a top, these vertical lines centre the work’s spin’* and Joan Mitchell herself talks of a plumb line. ‘I want them to hold one image ‘ she said, ‘despite all the activity. It’s a kind of plumb line dancers have’**

Image 2

Image 3
Image 4
Image 5
Image 6

Image 1: Untitled by Joy C Martindale (April 2021), 36x26cm

Image 2: Brackett (1989) Oil on canvas by Joan Mitchell, Image sourced from joanmitchellfoundation.org

Images 3,4,5 and 6 pages from Joan Mitchell, Selected Paintings, The Presence of an Absence, Essay by Nathan Kernan, Cheim and Read, New York 2002

*http://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/201701/joan-mitchell-65439

**Marcia Tucker, Joan Mitchell, (exhibition catalogue) New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1974), p9

Standard
Art, exhibition, Joy C Martindale

SAVAGE Postcard Exhibition

SAVAGE Journal have released their SAVAGE postcard exhibition! Posted is a set of 15 postcards featuring the work of UCL artists, spanning photography, painting, collage, sculpture, drawing and performance.

☀️Included in the set is my painting Sing To Me.☀️

The postcards are available to buy from the UCL Student Union shop, with half of proceeds donated to Mind.

Standard
Art, Article, Discussion, Joy C Martindale, Mental Health, New Work, painting

Happy International Day of Happiness to Everyone

Slightly Happier (Dec 2020), gouache and acrylic on paper, by Joy C Martindale, 41 x 31cm

When was the last time you felt happy?

My children have just discovered The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and I felt happy when I laughed myself into hysterics at a funny scene. Does that count?

I felt happy yesterday when I was on a train reading a magazine. I was reading that visitors to the artist Lala Rukh’s house were greeted by ‘two unmistakable seasonal smells: in winter, log-fire smoke and in summer, jasmine and lime wafting in from the garden.’* One sentence was enough to transport me there. The feeling of happiness that came with it was strong but momentary, does that count? In this strange and unsettling time, which has impacted on every aspect of our lives, I think it has to.

I think it is possible to equate positive emotional experiences – those little, everyday mood boosting moments that bring us joy – to happiness. Before the pandemic, perhaps happiness was something that shined with promise on the horizon; a state of being that could be obtained if we worked hard enough for it, but now when the future has become an unknown quantity and our focus has been pulled up short, it is our day-to-day experiences that we feel most acutely attuned to. With this has come a greater awareness of our moods and the fleetingness of them. Think of all the moods you can be in all in one day – an anxious mood, a sad mood, an angry mood, a calm mood, a dreamy mood and so on. Something positive that can come out of this imposed day-to-day existence could be the realisation that if we can let go of the pursuit of happiness as a panacea, we may become more open to acknowledging those nuggets of happiness we are already experiencing in our everyday lives.

So, even when we might feel sad, lonely, anxious or unhappy as we have probably all felt at some point during the pandemic, it is possible to experience happiness as part of these emotional experiences too.

More reading: Dr Daisy Fancourt and Research Fellow Alex Bradbury (UCL Epidemiology & Health) have tracked the everyday experiences of 70,000 people asking them each week how they are feeling.  

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2021/feb/analysis-we-asked-70000-people-how-coronavirus-affected-them

*Quote taken from Lives of the Artists: Lala Rukh By Mariah Lookman. Tate Etc Issue 48, P108

Scott Mills ‘This is Scott Mills on R1. How much do you love this?’ (talking about Jerusalem (Remix) by Master KG) 

Chris Stark: ‘Oh mate, every time this comes on, I feel slightly happier. And that’s a good thing.”

Scott Mills: ‘That’s kind of important right now.’ (04/11/2020)

Standard
Discussion, Joy C Martindale, New Work, Personal histories

Happy International Women’s Day

Happy International Women’s Day to everyone!

Untitled (November 2020) by Joy C Martindale, acrylic and gouache on paper, 38x27cm


Growing up I was conditioned to think that the only role models worth looking up to were male. It wasn’t until my early thirties, when I had a baby and was trying to figure out how it might be possible to be both a mother and build a career as an artist, that I really began to seriously question this way of thinking. All my treasured novels were written by men and my favourite art books were about men. I was shocked to see how deeply I had absorbed this message. I began to consciously seek out female role models who had strived to follow their ambitions no matter what obstacles came their way. 

One brilliant artist whose story has guided me as an artist since I became a mother is Rose Wylie. At Folkestone and Dover College of Art, Rose Wylie was told women couldn’t become great artists: “[Being an artist] was considered a stupid idea, women were just there for a bit of culture, like a finishing school, something to do until they got married. All the teachers were men, there were no women.”* 

Rose Wylie married a fellow artist, Roy Oxlade, when she was 21 and the first of their three children came a year later: “We decided it was not a good idea for two parents to paint, because painting is very isolating and you do tend to focus on yourself and children then become an irritation. I don’t think it works, and I think the bringing up of children is hugely important. So, I brought up the children and I think that was a good idea.”* She started painting again after about 20 years and today has earned international recognition for her work and is a hugely celebrated British artist. 

I like the way Rose Wylie takes ownership of her decision to wait until her children had grown up to return to painting. I believe that women should be able to choose for themselves how they want to approach balancing career aspirations with earning a living and bringing up children.

Whatever we decide to do it isn’t easy and I am still trying to work many things out. Finding positive role models to take inspiration from can help us navigate through challenges and hard times, such as the Covid-19 pandemic when the lockdowns have added insecurity and upheaval to our lives and it has been difficult or impossible to live, work, think and act in the ways that we are used to.

Quotes taken from an interview with Rose Wylie for the Guardian by Emine Saner: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/feb/13/rose-wylie-painter

Standard