HENRIETTA DUBREY • FIFTEEN NEW PAINTINGS

FRONT COVERSEEING REDoil on canvas130 x 105 cm

HENRIETTA DUBREY

FIFTEEN NEW PAINTINGS12 JULY - 27 JULY, 2013

Henrietta Dubrey on Fifteen New Paintings

It is strange and wonderful how, occasionally, a bolt of inspiration flows into being, predictably unpredictable, and a body of work emerges which seems to connect, to follow suite, develop a story, create a whole picture.In the search for a new simplicity, a directness of voice, I felt the need to express the ideas in pure abstraction, and following on from and developing my 2012 striped paintings, new bold shapes appeared across the canvasses. The palette of the works is subdued, quiet and contemplative. I was trying to achieve a more meditative and deep, thoughtful oeuvre.‘Hive’ and ‘Context’ were the first to appear, the pared-downness not quite achieved. The inspiration for these paintings was conceived during an IMS Prussia Cove concert on a cold winter’s night in Paul church. As the music played, my mind drifted and the ideas configured. The next morning in the studio, the compositions began to emerge instinctively, the particular ‘T’ shape and its dot repeating down the canvasses, which were worked on simultaneously.† The works which followed these, pared down further the dark strong lines on these first paintings, creating grid like shapes, defining areas of canvas.The whiteness, greyness and blackness, reminiscent of the winter months, the rawness of the season, the bareness, gave way firstly to a need for warmth and intensity as ‘Chocolatier’ was finished upon my return from a trip to London. †This painting describes for me a coffee-time treat with my daughter at a favourite haunt of mine since my days at the RA Schools. We sat in Patisserie Valerie in Old Compton Street, sheltering from a beastly January blizzard of sleet and snow outside, luxuriating in delicious pastries within. And then a sudden splurge of brightest green appeared on a canvas, a premonition of spring; work was going well, positive shoots pushed through, and colour was once more introduced to the palette. ‘Seeing Red’, one of the ‘Fifteen’, juxtaposed with the cooler more austere wintry works, carries the concept of spring giving way to midsummer; a June burst of warmth and sunlight. The deep warm reds change subtly down the canvas, through bright red to an intense burnt orange at the bottom of the canvas; the loose brushwork constrained by equally free margin lines, creating a grid like pattern which in turn connect back to paintings like ‘January’.Minimal in concept, it is an ideal opportunity for me to present these ‘Fifteen New Paintings’ as a body, in the hope that they tell a story of half a year of my artist’s life in West Penwith.

-April 2013

SEEING REDoil on canvas130 x 105 cm

CHOCOLATIERoil on canvas121 X 96 cm

JANUARYoil on canvas86 X 213 cm

MIDWINTERoil on canvas136 X 115 cm

WINTER SONGoil on canvas72 X 214 cm

BOSCEANoil on canvas93 X 150 cm

HIVEoil on canvas90 X 80 cm

CONTEXToil on canvas49 X 39 cm

SELVEDGEoil on canvas98 X 126 cm

TRULEIGHoil on canvas107 X 84 cm

CIAO CIAOoil on canvas66 X 84 cm

SLEEPoil on canvas85 X 66 cm

KINNERTONoil on canvas90 X 66 cm

THE REST IS NOISEoil on canvas105 X 238 cm

TINDERBOXoil on canvas130 X 105 cm

extras

BICERINoil on canvas50 X 40 cm

EGGoil on canvas44 X 55 cm

‘My work is generally described as abstract, although I would describe my paintings as autobiographical deconstructions of

life. These ideas appear on the canvas surface often as an abstract gestural web, occasionally tangled, occasionally bold

and reserved. An iconic form is liberated from a void into being.’

Born in 1966 in Sussex, Henrietta currently lives and works in West Penwith, near the tip of Cornwall, an area which has attracted many artists she admires: Roger Hilton, Patrick Heron and Terry Frost amongst others who were drawn by the inspirational qualities of light and space. Dubrey studied painting in London in the 1980s at the Byam Shaw School of Art, Wimbledon School of Art and the Royal Academy School. Her work has been shown since across the UK at galleries which include Edgar Modern in Bath, The Belgrave St.Ives and London and with Lynne Strover in Cambridge.

Using mainly oils on canvas, Henrietta’s work evolves through the act of painting exploring process and outcome, so that as the subject becomes evident she is able to let the work dictate its own direction. These ideas appear on the canvas surface often as an abstract gestural web, occasionally tangled, occasionally bold and resolved - like life itself.

Recent Solo Exhibitions

2012 Developing Horizons, Edgar Modern Gallery, Bath2011 Henrietta Dubrey at Skandlum, London

From Abstraction…, Edgar Modern Gallery, Bath2012 Colour to White, Bellgrave Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall

Lynne Strover Gallery, Fen Ditton, Cambridge2005 Paintings, Belgrave Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall2006 New Work, Belgrave Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall2007 Lynne Strover Gallery, Fen Ditton, Cambridge2008 Recent Paintings, Belgrave Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall

Bibliography

White Paintings, self-published monograph, 2007St Ives 1975-2005, Art Colony in Transition by Peter Davies, 2007Artists in Britain Since 1945, David Buckman Art Dictionaries Ltd, 2006

Edgar ModernBartlett Street, Bath. BA1 2EEwww.edgarmodern.comEnquiries@edgarmodern.com+44 (0)1225 443 746