Uncertain Promises
The Unofficial George Eliot Countryside
Paul Smith
2- 20 February 2022
Private View: Thurs 3 Feb. Please email gallery for invitation.
Artists Talk: Saturday 12 Feb. 2022 at 2pm. The artist will be in conversation with Prof. Ruth Livesey, Royal Holloway. Book HERE.
Paul Smith’s new paintings come from his time exploring George Eliot’s legacy in Nuneaton, as part of the writer’s bicentenary, and reflects her understanding of modern English life as being illustrated by the psychology of its marginalia.
In his edgelands, Smith finds the haunting beauty of life in an England of suburban landscapes – places where the delicate balances that describe the ethereality of Englishness itself are pushed, and push back.
About the Artist
Paul Smith is a London-based artist from Sunderland. His work is predominantly narrative abstract painting and collage exploring an interest in what is lost from memory and how that loss is “synthesized as trace in the landscape”.
Paul has exhibited widely in the UK, most recently a solo exhibition “Are You Leaving for the Country?’ at Muse Gallery on Portobello Road, London. He was part of the touring Contemporary British Painting Prize in 2016 and in 2018 a residency with Staithes Studios Gallery in North Yorkshire was followed by a solo exhibition ‘The Staithes Paintings’ and later that year ‘Painting the Anthropocene’ at One Paved Court.
Other notable exhibitions include The ING Discerning Eye (2017, 2016), Griffin Art Prize (2015), Neo Art Prize (2015) and solo shows ‘This is This’ at Don’t Walk Walk Gallery in Deal (2018), ‘Noise Rings’ at Farnham Maltings (2016) and ‘The Ice House’ at Northampton’s The Sanctuary Gallery (2014). Previous selected group exhibitions include ‘Supernature’, The Auxiliary, Middlesbrough (2019), ‘Two Fold’, Oceans Apart, OA Studios, Salford (2019), ‘Twice as Nice’ and ‘Small Worlds’ PS Mirabel, Manchester (2018, 2017), ‘Painting (Now)’ Studio 1 Gallery, London (2017) and ZAP Open, Zeitgeist Arts Projects, London (2014, 2013).
Sumnima Pun