SCREEN : Pip Dickens
PIP DICKENS ‑SCREEN
A solo exhibition of new works plus selected works from the SHIBUSA series of paintings
Rugby Art Gallery & Museum |29 June — 31 August 2013
SCREEN is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and is Part of the Rugby Festival of Culture
A substantial solo exhibition of over 35 paintings from the SCREEN and SHIBUSA series.
There are numerous definitions of what a screen is: a protective device, a defence play in sport, a military tactic, a substrate upon which to project light or film upon and so on. There are, too, other sources of information gathered along the way toward this solo exhibition — the Japanese screen for example, which seemed to chime with the subject matter. Another important discovery was the 14th Century Italian ‘fenestre impannate’, or ‘curtained window’. This was, essentially, a wooden frame stretched with canvas and soaked in oil and then inserted into openings in a domestic wall (the option of glass being financially prohibitive for most people). This intrigues me — we often think of windows as providing us with an open and clear aspect upon the world. In the case of the fenestre impannate no such clarity of vision is possible given that the canvas is a dense material and, once soaked in oil, would result (at best) in a form of light diffusion. The only visual information received would be a rather opaque and shadowy ‘flicker’ depending on external movement and light values.
When one considers a screen in the contemporary sense we might imagine film, cinema, television and projection devices. My enduring interest in cinema and cinematic technology permeates these works, with particular recognition of reportage (The Telegraph: December 2011) ‘Hollywood Says Goodbye to Celluloid’) that from the end of 2013 Hollywood will, in the main, be going digital. The physical, photochemical substance of celluloid and the magical, inventive ways in which directors have exploited this medium may soon become extinct after 120 years.
The works in this exhibition are the beginning of a prolonged exploration into the magic of film through painting and hold a mirror, too, to the magic of painting itself.
Catalogue ISBN 978−0−9550829−6−2. PDF Available here
