Inner Garden
paintings by Sarah Guppy
Tim Melville Gallery, 4 Winchester Street, Grey Lynn, Auckland
Opening: Wednesday 14 October 5:30 PM
Artist talk: Saturday 17 October 11 AM
Embarking - a boat pushing off from shore is never sure of how each day will unfold and so it is creating paintings. Process - from the Latin Processus meaning a journey forward. As a lover of analogy and metaphor the opportunity to express my ‘inner garden’ has grown into an exploration of text as a vehicle for paint blended with experience and memory. As well as poems and letters by creatives I admire, I have found travel has inspired homage to places and people in Morocco, Egypt, England and New Zealand.
I was interested to see that Sarah had Maggi Hambling as a teacher. These are two quotes from Maggi that go up on my workshop wall from time to time.
“Lett Haines told me ‘you must make your work your best friend that you can go to it whatever you’re feeling. You’re feeling tired, you’re feeling bored, you’re feeling happy, you’re feeling miserable, you’re feeling randy. You’re feeling what ever you’re feeling. And you go to your work and you have a conversation with it. And that’s how I’ve lived my life."
"Restless curiosity. 'Experiment, experiment, experiment. Everything has to be an experiment otherwise it’s dead". - Maggi Hambling
I take the emphasis on the word experiment as a reminder to work with an intelligent and relentless curiosity. For me that subsumes any reference to 'talent', inspiration' and 'creativity'.
I love Sarah's use of colour and how it reflects Frances Hodgkins, but is very much her own.
And there's a beautiful sense of otherworldiness in the works. In the content and the way colour is used. So many layers. Rich and cohesively complex.
By Chris Mules