Image © exhibition artists

Beating Time: A Conversation Between Painting and Poetry

Thu 16 January 2020 - Fri 21 February 2020

Alison Richard Building

An exhibition by Sandra Becarelli, Miranda Boulton, Alison Critchlow and Una d'Aragona

This exhibition proposes resonance across art forms and sets up a dialogue between painters, poets, viewers and readers. The paintings on show are inspired by separate enquiries into poetry, they talk to each other, like the flow of words on a page they investigate thoughts and ideas, concepts which are on the edge of conscious thought … all those things that are tricky to voice, hard to define and which words cannot easily express. The language of paint is employed to discuss and interpret the work of poets.

The visual conversation these painters set up is an open one; it can be entered into on many levels. Echoes and rhythms from across the centuries sit side by side. A repeating beat keeps time while time, flow and movement keeps us travelling from then to now and back again, from the natural world to the internal landscape, conduits of feeling and dialogue occur. The narratives of ancient mythology with squabbling Gods, wars, love and grief play out with contemporary voices, mingling with the meters of modern text.

It is based on the premise that poetry and painting meet at the edges of territories and share a hinterland area of similarity. The poet uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language and the painter a visual language to evoke, allude and reveal meanings and suggestions. The position of viewer or reader brings their own interpretations and understanding of the work. It is as though we understand more fully, perhaps in all our senses, when a thing is alluded to and a little bit hidden.

An Exhibition Private View will be held on 17 January 2020 from 18:00 – 20:00

Artist Talks will take place on 22 February 2020 from 14:00 – 16:00

Cost: free