EXPO CHICAGO 2023

ANDY BURGESS

Lauded by Annabel Sampson, Deputy Editor of Tatler as “the next David Hockney” painter Andy Burgess, who hails from London but lives in Arizona, continues to expand upon his fascination with contemporary architecture. A new series of paintings on panel and canvas colourfully re-imagines iconic modernist and contemporary houses. Burgess selects the subjects for his paintings with the discernment of the portrait painter. Buildings are chosen for their clean lines, bold geometric design, and dynamic forms. Burgess approaches his subjects with a fresh eye, simplifying and abstracting forms even further and inventing, somewhat irreverently, new colour schemes that expand the modernist lexicon beyond the minimalist white palette and rigid use of primary colours. Real places are sometimes re-invented, the architecture and design altered and modified, with new furniture and landscaping and a theatrical lighting that invests the painted scene with a dream-like quality and a peaceful and seductive allure.

Burgess explores in depth the genesis of modern architecture in Europe and the US and its relationship to modern art, avant-garde design, and abstract painting. Burgess explains his fascination with modernist architecture thusly:

‘Despite the huge impact of early modern architecture, the innovative and subtle minimalist buildings that I am researching, with their concrete and steel frames, flat roofs, and glass walls, never became the dominant mode of twentieth century building. We have continued to build the vast majority of houses in a traditional and conservative idiom, so that these great examples of modern architecture, designed by the likes of Gropius, Loos and Breuer to name but a few, are still shocking and surprising today in their boldness and modernity, almost a hundred years after they were built.’

Alongside the large-scale paintings, Burgess creates collages which reflect his love of vintage graphics, particularly those from the 1930s–50s, a “golden age” in American graphic design and advertising. Burgess has been collecting vintage American ephemera for many years; this ephemera is then unapologetically deconstructed, cut up into tiny pieces and reconstructed into visual and verbal poems, dazzling multi-coloured pop art pieces, and constructed cityscapes.

Burgess has completed many important commissions for public and private institutions including Crossrail (London’s largest ever engineering project), Cunard, APL shipping, Mandarin Oriental Hotels, a new medical centre in San Jose, California and most recently, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London.

In 2021 Andy Burgess started creating a series of site-specific artworks for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London. The project, initiated by CW+ – the official charity of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust – and facilitated by Cynthia Corbett Gallery, which represents Burgess internationally, aims to improve and enhance the NICU environment for patients, relatives and staff.

Working together with the NICU team, Burgess was reminiscing on the hospital’s neighbourhoods and its iconic views, sights and buildings in collaboration with hospital staff. Known for his unique, abstract and colourful style, Andy has transformed selected London scenes into incredible artworks to create a warm and welcoming environment for both parents and staff to enjoy. The display, installed on the 16th June 2022, includes a panorama of London, an image of Albert Bridge and another of a London Underground station. Additionally, Andy produced two smaller scale abstract pieces developed from the colour palettes of his larger works, which were gifted as part of the commission. CW+ also acquired two existing works by Andy for the unit through Cynthia Corbett Gallery.

Burgess’s collectors include the Booker prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro, actor and writer Emma Thompson, the Tisch family in New York, Beth De Woody, Board Member of The Whitney Museum and Richard and Ellen Sandor in Chicago, who have one of the top 100 art collections in America.

In March 2023, Burgess publicated of a new limited edition book of abstract ink on paper collages called Tiger’s Eye in conjunction with an exhibition at Laughlin Mercantile in Tucson, Arizona and the release of four luxurious silk scarf designs based on the collages.

Andy Burgess’s latest work combines two of his greatest artistic passions, mid-century and modernist architecture, and collage. In this new series of highly intricate pieces, Burgess has used hand painted paper to construct renditions of his favorite modern architecture. Replacing acrylic paint with gorgeous permanent inks he has introduced another level of textural interest. The ink adds a beautiful translucency and wash-like textures to the surface of the image…. making the finished work somewhat tapestry and mosaic like. The pleasure of these works lies in the complex shapes, the analogue quality of the fabrication and the sparkling crystalline colors. Those familiar with his work will recognize some of the iconic subject matter such as Frank Lloyd Wright’s wonderful Guggenheim Museum and famous Fallingwater residence as well as Los Angeles classics such as The Stahl House and other desert modern masterpieces. But there is an eclectic range of architectural subjects that spans decades and continents in a quest to do justice to the architecture of modern times!

Andy Burgess has been represented internationally by Cynthia Corbett Gallery since 2004.

MATT SMITH

Matt Smith is a multi award-winning artist based in Ireland and England. Acclaimed solo exhibitions include Losing Venus at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Flux: Parian Unpacked at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Who Owns History at Hove Museum and Queering the Museum at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. In 2015/16 he was artist in residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He holds a PhD from the University of Brighton and was Professor at Konstfack University, Stockholm.

In 2020 he was awarded the Brookfield Prize at Collect and the Contemporary Art Society acquired a body of his work for Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. His work is also held in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Walker Art Gallery, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, National Museum of Scotland, National Museum of Northern Ireland and the Crafts Council collection.

Trouble With History

The work is created from a found, vintage, needlepoint which is unpicked and restitched by the artist. Based on paintings by known male artists, the needlepoints were originally produced for amateur, anonymous sewers to stitch. Idealised figures are presented in bucolic settings, their faces replaced by the artist with neutral repeating patterns which disturb the working of the image. By interrupting without substituting a definitive alternative narrative, the work leaves the reinterpretation open for the viewer, questioning the heterosexual constraints of such imagery and prompting a re-consideration of the sitters' skin colour and identity and questioning the viewer’s complacent acceptance of such imagery. Works from the series are held by the V&A, the Crafts Council, Brighton Museum and the National Museum of Northern Ireland.

A 31 Note Lovesong

Developed while artist in residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum, A 31 Note Lovesong uses molds from the former Spode ceramics factory in Stoke on Trent and casts from objects in the V&A’s archives. Cast in black parian clay, the works create a portrait of the workers who made the molds, and comment on the silence in the former factory. The juxtaposition of composite objects within the work reflects the arbitrary grouping that occur within museum stores. The work was selected for the British Ceramics Biennial and has been shown at London Design Festival and Gustavsberg Konsthall Stockholm.

ALASTAIR GORDON

2020 Young Masters Guest Artist Alastair Gordon is a London based artist and tutor and a course leader for the Graduate Residency Scheme at Leith School of Art, Edinburgh. Last year, Alastair was artist in residency for City and Guilds of London Art School followed by a parallel residency with PADA Studios in Lisbon. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Aleph Contemporary, London (2020) and Ahmanson Gallery, Los Angeles (2017). Works feature in various international collections and public museums. He was the inaugural winner of the Shoesmiths painting prize and recently co-recipient of the Dentons Art Prize. His third book, Why Art Matters was published by Inter Varsity Press last year.

Begun in the landscape yet completed in the studio, these new works by Alastair Gordon mark a fresh trajectory for the artist. Gordon is best known for highly illusionistic paintings (rooted in the quodlibet tradition) but here he combines his heightened sense of realism with historical notions of intuitive wildness and British wilderness painting. Gordon makes paintings about paintings; works that oscillate between artifact and artifice. We are presented with landscapes as still lives and sketches as completed works. Certain questions emerge about authenticity, the painting process and how we consider notions of landscape today. The veracity of the object is constantly in doubt yet the wild is ever calling.

In making these new works Gordon travelled to the outer reaches of the British Isles, undertaking a painting pilgrimage from the heights of the Lake District, depths of Caithness peat flows and furthest reaches of the Outer Hebrides. Sitting atop mountain peaks and sinking into peat bogs each work begins in the landscape. As Gordon states, ‘I don’t seek a view but a sense of place’. From here the paintings are developed in the studio to appear as drawing boards and sketchbook work. Oscillating between hyperrealism and intuitive gesture, they both tame and subsume to the wilderness itself.

KLARI REIS

Klari Reis is an American artist with a Master of Fine Arts (2004) and an Associate Research Fellowship (2005) from the City and Guilds of London Art School. She lives and works in San Francisco and is represented internationally by Cynthia Corbett Gallery.

Klari Reis has invented her own medium, using epoxy polymer (a form of liquid plastic) with many added ingredients including pure pigment, acrylic and secrets. Reis’s design is almost otherworldly, her colours unique and her patterns inventive. Her artwork is both object and fine art and she is at the forefront of innovative use of art resources.

Klari Reis’ new works are imaginative recreations and curious playful inquiries into our place in the world. The artist proposes new ways
of seeing and understanding our natural environment through painting and sculpture, testing the boundaries of logical systems. By considering the contradictory implications of the word natural and exploring the relationships between the human and non-human, Klari embraces possibility through work that is joyful and hopeful.

We are delighted to be debuting seven new works on panel alongside her new ceramic pieces.

Klari Reis is represented internationally by Cynthia Corbett Gallery.

MIRANDA BOULTON

Miranda Boulton is a contemporary British painter who lives and works in Cambridge, UK. She studied Art History at Sheffield Hallam University and at Turps Banana Art School in London. In 2021 she won the Jacksons Painting Prize. Notable exhibitions include: Notable exhibitions include: Double Time (two-person exhibition) at Arthouse1, 2019, Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2016 & 2019, Creekside Open 2019, ING Discerning Eye 2021 and the Young Masters Autumn Exhibition 2022.

Miranda states: "My paintings are about the passing of time, they are Memento Mori, reminding us of our mortality and the transience of life. I paint flowers, alive, beautiful, decaying, dying, haunting, life affirming, poignant, reassuring. Always at the height of their beauty they fade away. They cover the monumental and the everyday. My grandfather was an artist, he died before I was born, my grandmother kept his studio the same as the day he died. As a child I use to sneak into his mysterious studio and imagine talking with him about his work. These conversations made me want to paint, to recapture something of him and make it present again. For me painting is an ongoing conversation between the past and the present. I am fascinated by Flower Paintings from Art History, having spent a great deal of time looking at paintings by Morandi, Winifred Nicholson, Manet, Rachel Ruysch and Mary Moser to name a few. I absorb their work and follow their brushstrokes as if listening in on a conversation. Memories of their paintings are used as the starting point for my process. I am searching for a space where I have touched on the feel and presence of a painting from the past. There is an essence of the original, an acknowledgement of a time, place and history all in the mix.

Colours slide and slip around the surface, large sweeping gestures made by hand or brush sit next to layers of impasto paint and carefully painted details. Areas of soft powdery spray paint collide with hard built-up oil paint. The canvas is turned to destabilise and shift the composition, giving fresh perspective to the process.

My practise is an ongoing conversation with the past, I explore new forms from old imagery and narratives, linked through expressive layers of colour, gesture and form."

Boulton describes her paintings are Nature Morte of flora. Her work is a response to historical references within this genre. Art historical images are translated through memory into a contemporary pictorial language, linked through expressive colour, gesture and form. Her interest in the passing of time is central to Boulton’s work. Flowers remind us of the fleeting, transient nature of life. She thinks of painting as a time-based medium, layers of paint are like timelines on a tree, each holding memories of brush marks and integral to the finished piece. Each painting is an ongoing conversation between past and present, an exploration of new forms from old imagery and narratives.

ELAINE WOO MACGREGOR

Elaine Woo MacGregor is a Scottish-born Chinese artist trained in the Glasgow School of Art. She graduated with a Bachelors Degree with honours, acquired a studio and began working as a full-time artist. MacGregor began to be noticed as a serious and thoughtful painter and her first solo exhibition was 'Portraits' in Glasgow. She has exhibited in galleries in Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Cambridge and abroad. One of her works - 'Hotel No.4' - is in the public galleries collection, the Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport. MacGregor's work has been shown in the U.K, U.S.A, Australia and Thailand and critically recognised by virtue of the Dewar Arts Award, the James Torrance Memorial Award, the Hope Scott Trust Award and the Cross Trust Fund. In 2022, she was a finalist in the Jackson's Painting Prize, received Art Paisley Prize for outstanding work, and Velvet Easel Award from Paisley Art Institute.

Recent exhibitions include her solo exhibition Maman et Muses in Edinburgh, Scotland, Art on a Postcard in Fitzrovia Gallery, London, Art Miami, USA, Young Masters, London and The British Art Fair, Saatchi Gallery, London, U.K. She has been selected for Platform 2023 - London Art Fair in 'Reframing the Muse', exhibition curated by Ruth Millington, showing with The Cynthia Corbett Gallery.Artist statement :

Elaine Woo MacGregor's work encapsulates the world seen through the eyes of a cross cultural artist. She uses eclectic mark making and imagery to create atmospheric and theatrical scenes. Although her painted stories are often fictitious, elements of the picture are based on real people, places and things.

‘Sometimes I doubt my memory and wonder whether I will only be able to remember what never really happened’.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Marina, 1999)

Elaine states: "My paintings are a series of narrative works based on the novel ‘The Shadow of the Wind’ by the late Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I am interested in the complex roles of the Women and the main character, Daniel Sempere, using the voice of the author as a stimulus, layering and painting out to determine the final composition.

I visited Barcelona and Madrid in August 2022. The neo-gothic architecture, the luminosity of the beaches, the meandering road to Montjuic, and the cross-country train journey through Spain’s arid interior – places and themes that play such a central role in the novel - have fuelled my ideas back in my Edinburgh studio.

There is a symbiosis between the way I paint, the narratives in my works and that of the late author’s. He speaks of generations, good and evil, love and lost love, tragedy, and friendship. I fused my visions, my interpretation of his words and his ‘old Barcelona’. I worked from my travel sketches, fashion photography, film stills and antique photographs to instil and create these painterly dream-like visions."

“Dreams have no titles. ”– Max Ernst

Artmag Feature: From the Shadow of the Wind to the Windy City: Elaine Woo Macgregor at Chicago Art Fair 2023

Elaine Woo MacGregor is represented internationally by Cynthia Corbett Gallery.

ELISE ANSEL

Elise Ansel was born and raised in New York City. Ansel received a BA in Comparative Literature from Brown University in 1984. While at Brown, she studied art at both Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design. She worked briefly in the film industry before deciding to make painting her first order medium. Ansel has exhibited her work throughout the United States and in Europe. Her works are held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art and the Evansville Museum of Arts and Sciences.

In her work, Ansel translates Old Master paintings into a contemporary pictorial language. She mines art historical imagery for color and narrative structure. Her paintings use the Old Masters as points of departure. They move into abstraction by transforming the representational content, which is obfuscated, if not entirely obscured, by her focus on color, gesture and the materiality of the paint. Ansel’s work strikes a balance between conscientious precision and irrational improvisation.

She begins with a series of small spontaneous oil studies. Using renaissance methods and a grid, she transcribes these into large scale paintings. The large paintings embrace the choreography of the small works with an increased emphasis on color and gesture. Spontaneity, instinct and intuition eclipse rational, linear thinking during the process of making the small works. The large paintings, however, are more considered. Her work fuses accident and design, intuition and intellect, abandon and constraint. The real subject becomes the substance and surface of oil paint, the range of its applications, the ways it can be used to celebrate life.

Ansel deconstructs pictorial language and authorial agency in order to excavate and liberate meanings buried beneath the surface of the works from which her paintings spring. Old Master paintings were, for the most part, created by men for men. Abstraction allows her to interrupt this one sided narrative and transform it into a sensually capacious non-narrative form of visual communication that embraces multiple points of view.

Elise Ansel was nominated for the Young Masters Art Prize in 2013 and 2014.