Connections: Group 7
30th September – 22nd October 2023
Artists: Brian Bishop, Martin Brewster, Bonnie Brown, Michelle Griffiths, Ursula Leach, Stephen Powell, and Peter Symons
The members of “group 7” are all established artists who are connected by their confidence in their practice as a relevant and vital medium, they aim to develop and substantiate their position within contemporary practice. All the artists are producing powerfully mature and expressive works, where colour is a common denominator
The title Connections for the exhibition gives meaning to their common ground, despite each of the group’s work having a distinct identity. The group exhibit together because of their mutual interests in the predominantly painterly language of abstraction. The group have a mutual confidence in the ability of marks, colour, gestures, and composition to communicate in their own right. Some of the group feature recognisable landscape references within their images, but here there is evidence of one of the primary engines of abstraction, the simplification and selection of shape. The elimination of details or elements of the topographical information to release the power of the evocative and more abstract concerns is a connection that can be identified. These are not literal representations of the landscape, colours are changed, forms are simplified and often flattened in the picture space, the imagery is developed by the actions and decisions of the artist in their own creative process to move towards forms that have their own painterly visual energy and exist in a more abstract world. These actions and decisions in the making (and discovering) process constitute a clear connection between members of Group 7
The exhibition will contain paintings, prints, sculpture, and drawings
Each member of “group 7” exhibits individually in numerous galleries in the UK, EU and USA. Work by the artists is held in many public, corporate and private collections and is included in numerous catalogues and books
