RESTLESS STATES
Sandra Beccarelli
20 – 31 March 2019
Saturday 30 March at 2 pm, the artist will be in conversation with painter Catherine Cleary. All welcome, no booking required.
Experimental and expressive abstract paintings, drawings and etchings conveying physical movement and psychological disquiet.
Restless States encompasses works which deal with structures and systems, processes of disruptions and the physical qualities of paint and other media.
These 3 main elements within the work are methods Sandra Beccarelli employs to investigate concepts of movement and change, both physical and psychological.
Sandra’s large paintings may display evidence of previous structures, long gone, altered, removed, disrupted; tiny syringed seepages of paint may emerge from behind the canvas questioning what is happening ’behind’. Her smaller scale pieces are meticulously and obsessively worked and re-worked as in her “Broken Skin” series, where canvases are continuously sewn and painted over, as interesting from the ‘back’ as the ‘front’.
Sandra’s own restlessness is conveyed through physical and gestural mark making, creating systems and breaking them, and by the unending exploration of the potential of materials
She is searching at the edges for the divergent or unintentional to be receptive of the numerous possibilities that may arise, and where each choice could be the starting point of a whole new body of work.
“Sandra’s paintings draw and build on the history of abstract painting by taking diverse vocabulary and concepts from across the whole field of abstract painting. She uses ideas and strategies from systems painting (e.g Agnes Martin), from the abstraction of nature and landscape (St Ives, Hodgkin, Mondrian) right through to the use of gesture and action found in Abstract Expressionism. By doing this, with her intuitive and experimental mindset, she conveys a sensation of living/human existence in the 21st century that is a departure into a space that can be in turn poetic, haunting, joyful, contemplative and playful.” Catherine Cleary
Sandra Beccarelli is a London-based abstract painter whose works have been selected and hung at The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, ING Discerning Eye and The Griffin Art Prize. She studied at Wimbledon School of Art, Foundation (1987-1988), Bristol Polytechnic Fine Art B.A (1988-1991), Accademia Belle Arte, Ravenna (1990). Since gaining her Postgraduate Diploma in Painting from City and Guilds of London Art School in 2010, Sandra has worked rigorously, participating in many group shows; “White Noise” at The Crypt, St Pancras,2017 “Mapping the Human Brain”, The Old Biscuit Factory, Bermondsey, 2018, “Three 100”, No Format Gallery, Deptford, 2017 and “Playing with Rules”, The Broad Gallery, Angel, 2015 She was invited to exhibit at the first contemporary art show, “From Surface to Structure” at Jean Luc Baroni in Mason’s Yard, St James’. Known for specializing in Italian master paintings, curators, Flavio Gianassi and Novella Baroni challenged old conceptions with drawing and sculpture by 6 contemporary artists.
Sandra was Artist in Residence at Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham, December 2015 – April 2016, with a solo show “Beyond the Surface of Seeing” in the Stables Gallery at the same time.
Interior design magazine, “Living Etc” featured one of her paintings in the Sept 2017 edition in an article about Interior designer Sophie Ashby.
