To Wander, To LustAlec Cumming

The Queen’s GalleryBritish Council

British High Commission17 Kasturba Gandhi Marg

New Delhi 110 00128 September - 28 October

(Open from Monday to Saturday Except Sundays and Holidays Between 10 am to 6 pm)

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Foreword

There’s quite a big gap between urban Delhi and rural Norfolk. Not just physically – Norfolk’s a longway away of course, but it’s not that hard to find, head to London, take a sharp right, and if you end upin the sea you’ve gone too far. But emotionally, environmentally, and culturally, they’re different worlds.

Not withstanding such a gap, there are surprisingly strong cultural connections. For a decade, CharlesWallace India Trust scholars have been taking part in placements at the British Centre for LiteraryTranslation in Norwich, with many other budding authors from India enrolling on the legendarycreative writing programme at the University of East Anglia. Norwich Castle Museum and Art Galleryhas a strong partnership with the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, the former Prince ofWales Museum in Mumbai, that’s seen artist residency exchanges and exhibitions. And one art galleryin Norwich, Art 18/21, has been blazing a trail for cultural exchange in the visual arts that’s an exampleto the rest of the sector, introducing a host of Indian and UK artists to each other’s audiences for severalyears.

One such artist is a young man from Norfolk, Alec Cumming. It’s one thing to have an institution createan opportunity, as Art 18/21 has done for Alec: it’s quite another to seize it, embrace it, and use thatopportunity as the inspiration for new creativity and beauty, as Alec has done for himself through theseworks created right here in Delhi.

So it’s a real treat to welcome Alec Cumming’s first solo exhibition in India to the Queen’s Gallery. TheBritish Council exists to foster the exchange of cultural expression and ideas between people around theworld: and of course this exhibition by a young British artist in India is a wonderful example of that.

But we have a wider purpose too: through encouraging creative exchange and collaboration, we aim topromote a cultural inquisitiveness, an intellectual curiosity about the wider world beyond our borders.It’s this that really marks out Alec Cumming’s story: working from Neb Sarai for almost a year now, heembodies the possibilities of cultural exchange, his work a creative manifestation of what the BritishCouncil is all about.

I’m sure you’ll enjoy the show.

Adam PushkinHead of Arts, British Council India

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To Wander, To Lust

“Hello. Aap Kaise ho? mujhe ek coffee chahiye”. The painter Alec Cumming starts his day, stopping briefly

at his morning coffee place to soak up the riot of daily activity that surrounds his studio in Neb Sarai, South

Delhi. As ever, the young artist is full of optimism and eager to get cracking on the large expanse of white

canvas that awaits him in the light and airy workspace where he has been painting for almost a year.

Yesterday’s production, the painting that Cumming has been toying with for the past week, hovers

expectantly on the paint splattered wall, teasing him with its glistening layers of luscious, wet paint, that

beg to be played with once again by the artist’s brush.

Cumming’s paintings are often described as abstract works by those who are not quite sure how else to

explain them. This is perfectly fine. Abstraction is no longer something to be wary of. The strange shapes

and forms that come together in a painting full of abstracted images can suggest everyday objects,

landscape, figuration and make other references, but this is the very thing that is to be enjoyed. It is the

ambiguity and the vagueness of visual forms that allows the viewer the freedom to also play with what they

are seeing and enjoy the liberty this brings. There is no right or wrong answer to what is being viewed.

Abstraction as a process has always been an act of give and take, of reciprocity, in both the space between

the work and the viewer and the artist and their influences. In the mid-20th century when abstraction was

at its height, just as the artists from the east were looking to modernism for new modes of expression so

artists from the west were looking to the east for a spiritual essence. Considering the totality of art

production in India, it is fair to say that South Asia has had a fairly brief but continuous affair with abstract

art and abstraction.

But the shackles of traditional labeling have been cast aside by the new generation of young artists and like

his peers, working in the heart of India’s pulsating Capital, Cumming sees himself not as a painter working

in the tradition of British abstraction, nor as a painter dislocated from his roots, from Norfolk in the East of

England, but simply as a contemporary artist who is part of the vibrant and living Delhi art scene. His is a

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contemporary practice in a contemporary world, engaging with life, both the good and not so good

which provide the ever changing references for his new work.

Although his painting methods have not altered with his new location, the scale of Cumming’s paintings

most definitely has. A change that has been brought about by opportunity and the ability to up his scale

and work on increasingly larger canvases, surfaces which have become more-and-more physically

present, not only in terms of the painted surface but also in a new preference for large vertical formats.

It is as if the boy has grown up and rather than fiddling around the kitchen table (previous still-life

paintings that echo the presence of William Scott and Roger Hilton) Cumming’s paintings now fully

reflect the man standing in front of them, paint brush protruding, both canvas and artist demanding

attention with a playful and teasing charm; the emphasis moving from artist to canvas back and forth

with the flicks and strokes of the brush. Cummings works directly onto the raw white canvas. The

preparation of his paints is a contemplative affair. In warming up for the act of painting, he mixes his

colours in the heap of empty coffee cups that fill his bench and serve as a reminder of the world that

pulsates and life outside his studio space.

The large-scale painting After the Re-Start (see p. 11) is a prime example of the artist as tease and this

notion of teasing is exactly the right description for his new works. The painting screams body at the

viewer as we try to make out the parts, the large fleshy pink shapes that mischievously defy definition. It

is as if the artist is making a playful, rude-gesture to the poe-faced notion of high-art and engages in

what excites his visual cortex.

Cumming has a penchant for collecting kitsch and popular culture (and he now has an enviable

collection of mid 20th century Indian film vinyl classics) and it is this engagement with ‘poppy’ images

that we see coming through in his new paintings. In After the Re-Start the forms pretend to be a body

but we don’t quite know what the hand at the bottom of the image is grasping. At the same time the

shapes are almost face like, with its big square nose pushed up to the wall on the right-hand side,

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squashed like the best comic strip or film-still. Yet the nose playfully refuses to fit with the fleshy colours

we are offered, which is never quite a body in the middle of a not-quite-obvious space and the use of the

overall angled shape that also suggests an elbow or a leg.

This shape, the right-angled body part, playfully reoccurs throughout his new works. In Brand New You

(see p.13) the fleshy protrusion cuts across the space in what appears to be a playful dash, with a

suggestion of stubble, of uncouth hair and again makes a nod to popular comic book heroes such as

Desperate Dan or Scooby Doo’s Shaggy.

The art of teasing is not quite victimising and Cumming’s new paintings are incredibly affectionate.

Making a Move (see p. 33 ) offers more and even fleshier pulsating pink shapes, whose body increases in

visibility as it moves across the bleached-out townscape. Not exactly an urban landscape but nevertheless

a space that doesn’t move. A white space, devoid of colour, that doesn’t pump blood, the antithesis to the

figure it shows off to its full potential. Once again we are playfully offered double images to emphasis the

point. Full-bodied lips pout invitingly, echoing the ripe cherries swinging and teasing below. Both smudge

blood when you kiss them and burst blood when you bite into them and if this is not enough they mimic

the shape of the heart the very thing that pumps and moves the warm liquid around.

By contrast I was There (Lost on a Promise) (see p. 35) plays adversary to those around it; the other

paintings in the show. Here we see the body, the very pale thing, the bloodless object that hangs in the

balance existing between plinth and the object that threatens, hanging above it and promising to come

crashing down. Cumming is once again toying with his audience as the artist strips this body down so it is

almost indistinguishable from its background and we are ready to believe that it may disappear at the

drop of a hat.

But it is flesh and blood that ultimately excites the young artist and it is in his two seminal smaller works

‘Little Pink Wallah’ (see p. 17 ) and ‘Little Pink Wallah 2’ (see p. 19) that the artist has the final tease as we

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are pulled inside out, physically wrenched and turned, as the thick blood-red background becomes our

inside and engulfs us. In this playful inversion those objects that are closer become lighter and in Little

Pink Wallah 1 the hand ultimately becomes devoid of blood like a fist that is clenched and white at the

knuckles.

This is Cumming’s first solo show in New Delhi, a show that is a reflection of the artist’s dedication, hard

work and love of his practice. It is to be followed by his forthcoming solo show in New York. The

beginning of 2013 will see Cumming’s third year of exhibiting with Art 18/21 at the India Art Fair in New

Delhi for the 5th Edition.

Laura Williams

Art 18/21

Catalogue of Works

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After The Re-Start213 x 198 cmOil on Canvas2012

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Brand New You132 x 122 cmOil on Canvas2012

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Bacha Brings It All132 x 122 cmOil on Canvas2012

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Little Pink Wallah I61 x 51 cmOil on Canvas2012

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Little Pink Wallah II61 x 51 cmOil on Canvas2012

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To Wander, To Lust29 x 21 cmWater Colour on Paper2012

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Untitled55 x 75 cmWater Colour on Paper2012

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And When It’s All Done213 x 198 cmOil on Canvas2012

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That Pleasure Thing134 x 122 cmOil on Canvas2012

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Smacking One Out There122 x 152 cmWater Colour on Paper2012

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I’ll make my own way134 x 122 cmOil on Canvas2012

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Making A Move213 x 198 cmOil on Canvas2012

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I Was There, (Lost On A Promise)134 x 122 cmOil on Canvas2012

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Painting Amongst It81 x 92 cmOil on Canvas2012

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Untitled55 x 75 cmWater Colour on Paper2012

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Untitled55 x 75 cmWater Colour on Paper2012

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Sleep Little One50 x 43 cmOil on Canvas2012

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Up To The Edge91 x 102 cmOil on Canvas2012

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Untitled21 x 29 cmWater Colour on Paper2012

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Bounce Billi Bounce122 x 134 cmOil and charcoal on canvas2012

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Biography

Born in the UK in 1986, Alec Cumming was raised on the Norfolk/Suffolk border with a garden that openedonto the gently undulating countryside.

Cumming Studied at Norwich City College where he took a Diploma in Fine Art followed by a BA (hons) in Fine Art from Norwich School of Art and Design (2004 - 2007). Always actively involved, following two years as Student Union President at Norwich School of Art and Design, Cumming was a founding member of STEW artist studios in Norwich.

Represented by Art 18/21 since early 2009, Cumming has participated in a number of group and solo shows,art fairs and artist residencies. Since October 2011 Cumming has based his practice between New Delhi andNorwich.

Select Exhibitions

September 2012, ‘To Wander, To Lust’, The Queen’s Gallery, British Council, New Delhi, India. Solo Exhibition.

February 2012, West: East, Exhibition with Mathew Lanyon, Art 18/21, Norwich, UK.

February 2012, Val Baroda, MS University Gallery, Baroda, India. Group Show.

January 2012, 4th India Art Fair, New Delhi, India. Exhibited by Art 18/21.

September 2011, A language of its Own, Alan Wheatley Art, Mayfair, London, UK. Solo Exhibition.

July 2011, Ad Limina, Salthouse, Norfolk, UK, Group Show.

March 2011, Inspirations, Jarrolds, Norwich, UK. Group Show.

January 2011, 3rd India Art Summit 2011, New Delhi, India. Exhibited by Art 18/21.

December 2010, New Paintings, ICA Gallery, Jaipur, India. Group Show.

October 2010, The Touch of Paint, Maggi Hambling, Art 18/21, Norwich, UK. Group Show.

June 2010, Forms that Flow, Alan Wheatley Art, Mayfair, London,UK. Solo Exhibition.

February 2010, Raw Gestures, Art 18/21, Norwich, UK. Group Show.

Work held in private and corporate collections in, Australia, Egypt, France, Hong Kong, India, Israel, UK andthe United States.

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For more information please Contact:

Deepa KumarGallery Manager: Queen’s GalleryBritish CouncilBritish High Commission17 Kasturba Gandhi MargNew Delhi 110 001

T: +91-11-2371 1401, 4219 9000/+91-9811993926F: +91-11 2371 0717E: delhi.enquiry@in.britishcouncil.org

For all enquiries about the work of Alec Cumming please contact:

Laura WilliamsART 18|21Augustine Steward House14 TomblandNorwichNorfolkNR3 1HFUnited Kingdom

Email: laura@art1821.comPhone: +44 1603 763345Mobile: +44 7879 673419 +91 9958 644810 (India)Web: www.art1821.com

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