6 Mar 2012 to 17 Apr 2012
Monday – Friday, 9:30am – 5:00pm.
At the Daiwa Foundatin Japan House Gallery
Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
“…we find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates.” Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows.
Patterns of Shadows is an exhibition of oil paintings by Pip Dickens, derived from her research in Kyoto in 2011 as part of a Leverhulme Trust Award Artist in Residence project within the Music Department of the University of Huddersfield and collaboration with composer Professor Monty Adkins. The paintings (oil on canvas) draw upon colour, pattern, rhythm and vibration, associated with kimono fabrics and katagami stencils, and frequently juxtapose these with quieter, understated greys, shadows and subtle interplays of light. These extractive works observe distinctions within Japanese visual culture – sometimes celebratory, playful and exuberant, at other times subtle, introspective and reflective. The works are produced using bespoke tools, combs and ‘dysfunctional’ brushes to produce intriguing oscillating effects set against quieter, meditative, colour fields. Dickens draws on references such as Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s essay on aesthetics, In Praise of Shadows, as well as her own private collection of katagami stencils and kimonos.
Pip Dickens (MFA Slade) is a painter concerned with visual perception, in particular, examining and challenging theories and methodologies of light and movement within the second dimension. She has exhibited regularly in London, other areas of the UK, and also San Francisco, USA. She was shortlisted for the NatWest Art Prize (1997) and was the recipient of the Jeremy Cubitt Prize (Slade). She won the Edna Lumb Art Travel Prize (1995), and shortlisted for the Celeste Painting Prize 2009. A book – SHIBUSA-Extracting Beauty – including texts by Monty Adkins, Pip Dickens, arts writer Roy Exley and kimono designer Makoto Mori is to be published early in 2012. She also has a substantial solo exhibition, Toward the Light – Pip Dickens, at The Brindley Arts Centre, Cheshire (31 Mar – 12 May 2012), which is a Bradford Museums and Galleries touring exhibition. www.pip-dickens.com
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