Drawings for Couples series

Paintings from this series were shown at:

Intimacies, 1999, Scarborough Art Gallery and Museum, Scarborough, Yorkshire

Reconciliations, 1998, Pittville Gallery, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Wordless, Myles Meehan Gallery, 1998, Darlington Arts Centre, Darlington, County Durham

Strong Meat, 1995, Morley Gallery, London

Wordless

Intimacy, anger, warmth and despair. The touch of these works is the urgent prod, the slap, the cut, the caress. The use of an established format; a recognition of the binary nature of gender and the use of the painting process for psychological understanding, that enables the paintings to refer to situations beyond the one-to-one. Metaphors shared by the body, buildings and landscapes are reflected in the presence, substance and behaviour of the paint.

It is the visibility of the making process that offers the real insights into these binary configurations. The most potent evidence of the underlying intentions of the paintings are indicated through the means employed, for example by the early establishment and the subsequent treatment of forms. The paintings celebrate the pleasures, paradoxes, uncertainites of the duel state.

Virginia Bodman 1998

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