Pools of Sorrow; Waves of Joy | Saffron Newey
28 February - 18 March, 2023
Weaving a capricious path through five centuries of western painting, Pools of Sorrow; Waves of Joy visits upon histrionic moments. The works pay homage to movements such as Australian mysticism, the Italian, Dutch and Spanish Baroque, Preraphaelitism, Norwegian Romanticism and even banal stock imagery.
A series of eight oil paintings feature new collaged narratives; figures appear in unfamiliar landscapes, conjuring atmospheres that are at once magical and alien. Nymphs, animals, pastoral scenes and night skies have been summoned from historical artworks and online archives. Their new union in these works evoke curiosity and polarised emotions. Gratuity, melodrama, melancholy and the mundane all congress from divergent points. Together, in a cacophony of lost voices, scenes of sublime joy and inky darkness coexist.
Accompanying the paintings is a series of palimpsests - each artwork consists of layered mono prints, silverpoint and ink drawings which likewise, source historical images but also automatic drawing and imaginary motifs.
Like a cloud of cyphers, an incongruent constellation Pools of Sorrow; Waves of Joy imagines the lost details of history, floating, clashing and moving ever distantly apart and together again.
