An English Imagination: Lesley Seeger Exhibition
Production: An English Imagination: Lesley Seeger Exhibition
Venue: Norman Rae Gallery
Rating: ***
Courtesy of the Norman Rea Art Gallery, anyone walking west of the English Department this week should prepare to be hit by a fusion of colour and passion as they approach Lesley Seeger’s embracing and energetic paintings.
With pieces entitled Doors to the Heart and An English Exhibition, Seeger’s work embodies the abstract force of emotion represented and reinforced by nature. With most paintings showcasing the vitality and force of the natural world corresponding with human conflict, there is a sense of exaltation, joy and epiphany at the heart of their character.
All this superfluous celebration and use of colossal colour contrast could bring upon a small sense of nausea. But subdued hues and subtle abstractions found in the more reserved paintings, such as Heart of Darkness, lower the tone of more heightened scenes. An underlying poignancy begins to arise and helps to distract the eye from the more ostentatious displays.
Seeger’s inspiration is instantly recognisable in her more realist, architectural representations of foreign lands and unfamiliar cultures. She attributes the bulk of her stimulus to travel, and the way various cultures are displayed in other art forms. She says: “Recently I have pulled hot foreign lands out of my imagination based on novels I have read set in Mexico, Chile and Africa.”
Seeger never sketches out her ideas, and instead they are transferred straight to canvas. The implied spontaneity of her style may be deceiving however; she spends up to six-months on one piece, adapting its elements as she works. The result is what she sees as a “celebration of everything that is holy about the physical world.” Viewers of the exhibition on its opening night didn’t seem too convinced, with one first-year History of Art student admitting that she was ambivalent about the works. Many of her paintings, despite some certain contrasts in colour, seem to lack a nuance, with contrasting emotions developing in the same tone.
As Seeger says, however, they are the ‘antidote to the English weather” – a perfect form of escapism.
An English Imagination is showing in the Norman Rea Art Gallery, located in Langwith College above the Courtyard, until Friday 27th February. Entrance is free.
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