Noela James

#94. Noela James writes on Pete Hoida at the Malthouse, Stroud

‘Poet and Peasant’, 178 x 335 cm., November 1991

Origins and Diversions: Pete Hoida paintings 1991-2017, in association with SITselect at The Malthouse, 9 January – 25 February 2018

http://www.petehoida.co.uk/exhibition/malthouse.html

“What use painting is to woman or man is unknown, yet it is surely necessary, as attested to by the caveman and the dandy. I have long pursued a path that avoided the health-plans and dogmas of the high-priests and the moneylenders, and yet have overthrown nothing but painterly cliches and visual platitudes.

Over a career of fifty years I have disregarded the demand to produce series of signature works and failed to subjugate myself to mere talent. I am not looking to produce patterns; each period of painting has created, or found, its own identity. Sometimes the characteristics of the work, or foundations, carry over from one year into the next period. Or subside for a time before reappearing transformed, made new yet again. Paintings from the 2010’s can present aspects of the 70’s. The colour say, or the motif, or motive force, the brush-stroke, the time-line, the structure, its translucency or opacity, its serenity or punch. I have eschewed drawing, images, narrative and subject; I have defied the camera that always lies. I have told only the story of the brush that lies. I have quarrelled with the canvas and lost. I have found the surface and ignited it.” Pete Hoida, 2017

The Malthouse, formerly part of Stroud Brewery, is a formidable venue for an art exhibition. The bare rustic brick walls and vast height are no problem, however, for Pete Hoida’s central piece, ‘Poet and Peasant’, measuring a magnificent 178 x 335cm. The painting completely holds its own and commands the space with its sublime passages of pastel shades in pistachio, turquoise, eau de nil, yellow and pink, offset by blocks of rich sumptuous carmine overpainted by muddy purple, smeared yellow into umber, earthy green and flashes of orange and red. Hoida allows the underpainting to show through, creating a rich surface generating space and light.

(more…)

#66. Noela James writes on Nick Moore exhibition “MaterialShift”, Nailsworth

Nick Moore installation

MATERIALSHIFT, an exhibition of the work of Nick Moore is showing at Ruskin Mill Gallery, Old Bristol Road, Nailsworth, GL6 0LA, 29th April – 23th May 2017

Ruskin Mill, situated in a wooded Cotswold valley beside a lake, is the perfect setting for Nick Moore’s latest exhibition, ‘MATERIALSHIFT’. The old stone interior, with a soot laden wall scorched by a primitive open fire, reflects the elemental quality of the earthy pigments Nick uses in his paintings/collages. These works stem from a series of paintings Nick rediscovered during a recent studio move. They were discarded canvasses and different from his earlier series, ‘Dark Intervals’ (which had focused on black and burnt umber as key components), in the sense that they had a revised colour palette of buff, Payne’s grey, red ochre and burnt umber. In this new series Nick has integrated added material into the fabric of the paintings and heightened the textural experience. He has used sacking, old roofing felt, PVA mixed with either sawdust or sand, crushed charcoal and ashes mixed with acrylic colour and ink, together with various moulded cardboard remnants that have been distorted and flattened to create areas of animated surface.

(more…)