Saied Dai RP, NEAC & Charlotte Sorapure 10 May - 24 May 2023
'In the Mind's Eye'
Exhibition opens on Saturday 10th June.
View the full exhibition here
We are honoured to be holding this joint exhibition featuring two excellent artists Saied Dai and Charlotte Sorapure.
In this exhibition Saied explains: "The motivation and attitude of an artist can best be determined, not so much by their subject-matter, but how that subject is interpreted. The vehicle is important but should not be mistaken for the destination.
This seemingly disparate collection of paintings and approaches are the culmination and inadvertent diary of what has ‘caught’ me in the last couple of years.
A closer look will reveal the connecting thread of focus, intention and resultant atmosphere that connects them all. Art really does come out of life.
All ideas are founded on observation, for without obser-vation there would be no content. Some are painted directly from the subject, others mostly from drawings; whilst a number are based on an idea, or even derived from imagination. Often it is a mixture of all these elements together, aiming to create a self-contained world that comes back to the reality with greater force and expression - a mystery and hopefully an enigmatic beauty.” Saied Dai
Charlotte explains "Paintings often feed off one another. It can be helpful to switch from an observed to an invented image, as the objectivity of one and the lyricism of the other remind me that good paintings need to have elements of both.
I am usually hinting at a kind of poetic awareness rather than any literal narrative – to hopefully give the viewer a sense of the underlying mood and character of a place or an object. It is a case of being constantly alert to the possibilities in potential subjects; from a humble still life, to figures or the patterns and movements in nature.
There is a group of paintings within this exhibition that represent something of a turning point, where unconventional night-time compositions of the garden became a compelling subject. Something of a symbiosis between garden and painting developed - the one influencing and nurturing the other.
Night both captivates and unsettles. The ending of our daytime activities and the onset of darkness can paradoxically mark a period of awakening - not only for nocturnal creatures, but also for different parts of our psyche to emerge ... a different awareness.
In this group of night paintings, the shadow itself takes on an independent life, interacting with its surroundings, hopefully eliciting the other-worldly quality of nocturnal settings. Form and structure have merged, melded and simplified. It is not intended to signify the dark side of human nature but to point to a more nocturnal mode of being.
Light used to be rare - now it is abundant. Consequently, darkness has become precious, similar to that other precious thing, silence.” Charlotte Sorapure
To view all available work by Saied please click here
To view all availabe work by Charlotte please click here
To view the digital catalogue please click here.