A Little More Guts, Please!
An afternoon with Joan Eardley and Natasha Cooke at the Rye Art Gallery - Left to the Land
I popped into Rye Art Gallery this weekend and emerged two hours later feeling as though someone had given me and my painting practice a good shake. In the best possible way.
Fourteen luminous Joan Eardleys, on loan from a private collection, hanging alongside the work of contemporary painter Natasha Cooke. And, even better, a curatorial walk and talk with Natasha herself, taking us through the paintings, the process and the rather wonderful conversation taking place between these two artists. The more she spoke, warming to her subject as we moved from painting to painting, the more I began to see her work through the eyes of Joan Eardley and vice versa.
I knew a little of Eardley's work, but nothing like enough. Her paintings are extraordinary. Full of energy, movement and glorious, glorious colour. Even in the quieter canvases, the land and the people feel alive. This vitality is something Natasha has made her own.
In Heatwave Harvest, her golden field painting (and my favourite), the yellow is almost impossibly luminous. Look closely and it isn't simply yellow at all. There are oranges, cooler blues, greys and flashes of warmer colour working away underneath. The great sweep of sky takes up much of the canvas, while the field seems to shimmer beneath it. The hay bales are barely described, yet they are absolutely there. It is the light, rather than the detail, that holds everything together. Well, that and the bits of grass that have bound themselves to the paint. That's what you get as a plein air painter, and it is rather wonderful.
Then there is Rising Trees at Crawton, with its dark, almost charcoal-grey sky, pink grasses and that wonderful slash of light cutting through the landscape. I kept returning to this one (as did fellow exhibition-goers Sally and Steve, who loved it so much they bought it!). The trees are reduced to a dark, ragged silhouette, but the space around them seems to glow. Those unexpected pinks against the yellow and blue-grey are scrummy. So much movement in the brushwork, yet the painting holds together beautifully.
Julian Day, Director and Curator of the gallery, has hung Natasha's landscapes amongst Eardley's portraits, and this deliberate choice brings out the relationship between the two artists. The pinks, turquoises, warm yellows and earthy greys seem to speak to one another across the gallery. What gradually creeps up on you, particularly when looking at Rising Trees at Crawton alongside one of Eardley's portraits of a seated boy, Andrew on a Stool in Bomber Jacket from the 1950s, is that the connection goes far beyond colour. Both painters seem utterly immersed in their subjects, rather than standing outside looking in. There is something of themselves in every painting. Their work becomes a map of who they are, as much as what we see.
Most insightfully, Natasha described Eardley's seascapes as 'portraits of the sea'. I think she nailed it. Eardley was not simply painting what the sea looks like, but capturing its character.
Finally, what am I taking back to my own studio? A reminder to trust the paint, to be braver with colour and to stop trying to describe every last detail. Less fiddling, more conviction.
In short, a little more guts, please!
The photographs are mine, taken at Rye Art Gallery. I've done my best with the lighting, but these are paintings that really deserve to be seen in person. They're hanging until 22 November, so you still have time to get to yourself to Rye.
I love "heatwave harvest" - it is the way the paint does just enough to make the picture come alive with energy without ever getting in the way or dominating the subject matter. Just excellent. Be brave, I say.