After a series of recent health issues, It was sheer delight to get out and about. I chose to see this exhibition of work by Eleanor Bartlett. I had seen one piece by her before, also at the Vanner Gallery. It was by far and away the best in that show.
She paints using very utilitarian materials, metal paint and bitumen from hardware stores. The work, though, transcends the hum drum nature of the materials. The large paintings have an overpowering presence which dominates their surroundings. Even the smaller one have a physicality which transforms them from 2D painting to sculptural objects. I’ve quoted Terry Frost before, “To look at a painting which gives you the opportunity to have solitude, to be yourself and to be able to wander into reverie, is more than hedonistic, it’s spiritual” and these works have that same quality. They have a depth into which one can fall. They also seem to have a history, with a sense of millennia of accretion and erosion, all leading to the object before the eye.
I was also intrigued to hear, talking to David Christie, the gallery director, that Eleanor Bartlett holds a similar view to mine about the meaning of abstract work. I missed the artist talk, but she refuses to talk about meaning – ‘it has no meaning’. The composer John Cage apparently said, in a talk, “I have nothing to say, and I’m saying it”, cited by Gerhard Richter in the context of his ‘Cage’ series. I’m obviously in good company.
Unfortunately, you don’t have long to see the show – it closes on Saturday. I’m sorry I didn’t make it earlier, if only so that I could have gone again. If you can make it to Salisbury in time, I recommend you make the effort.
