The international, award-winning artists Muirne Kate Dineen and Paul Vanstone present a joint exhibition of new and developed work in Colour and Form: Sculptures, Frescoes and Drawings, from 7th–19th December at the Royal Geographical Society.
The exhibition brings together two artists rarely shown together in their respective mediums; juxtaposing Vanstone’s sculptural works with Dineen’s frescoes and drawings in this site-specific presentation.
Dineen is internationally recognised as a leading colour artist, working in the process of Araash Fresco, the ancient and complex tradition of fresco painting, believed to have originated from Rajasthan, Western India. She works with a tangible vigour, and builds colour with marble dust, slaked lime and pigments. The propulsion of colour in her work becomes visceral – a dazzling process of mixing and building to create a vast array of pure, intense and luminous colours. There is an alchemic quality to her work, sustained by the artist’s dedication to this unique practice that she has customised for her work as she continues to develop a visual language of colour.
In Colour and Form: Sculptures, Frescoes and Drawings, Dineen and Vanstone share a tactile connection with a shared love of transforming raw materials and “seeing where it takes us”.
While Dineen’s work explodes with colour, evoking deep feelings of joy and a fascination for her studied contemplation of this ancient Indian technique, while Vanstone’s ethereal sculptures are a perfect study in form.
Installations
Dineen’s installations burst with colour – blood reds, lapis blues, rich mustardy yellows and deep pinks. Dineen observes with her work: “I want people to be enveloped by colour, to be swallowed by it. This exhibition presented extraordinary and near impossible challenges: the space is entirely glass with no physical walls and so I adapted and made site-specific works that were small in scale and demanded a entirely different approach to the making.”
Dineen achieved a First Class Honours from the London College of Printing, an MA in Textiles and Illustration from the Royal Academy of Art and finally, a PHD from the Royal College of Art. She has exhibited all over the world; both in solo shows and in group exhibitions in America, Switzerland, Germany, Japan and the UK, including the prestigious Victoria & Albert Museum in London. For the past 30 years, Dineen has worked closely with Studio Mumbai, an architectural practice based in India, on a range of international projects.
“We decided to have a show together because having worked along parallel lines, since the Royal College of Art where we met, there was an opportunity to take on and share this space. There is a conversation and a connection between our work of turning raw materials including marble, which is fundamental to both our practises, and in my case a deep connection with colour, into a solid material and solid objects, both wall and floor sited.” added Dineen.
Light
Paul Vanstone is an established international sculptor, working primarily in stone and marble. His work has been widely recognised internationally with work in numerous important private collections and he regularly shows at the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show. He is the recipient of many prestigious awards including the Henry Moore Sculpture Award (1991).
Vanstone’s fascination lies in the hardness and light reflecting qualities of marble and its transformative nature in the portrayal of the human form and flow. Paul Vanstone commented, “I strongly believe that the work I make needs to connect with people. For me this completes a circle which starts in the marble quarries, transforms inside the studio, and then looks out on the world from private homes and exhibition spaces. My work always has a figurative element in it, looking for ways to portray the experience of being human within the materials. For example, regarding the selection of Alabaster; this extraordinary material has properties just like human skin – absorbing and reflecting light. Kate and I met at the Royal College of Art when Kate was doing a studio-based PhD on the technique of Jaipuri Fresco and I was doing my Masters in Sculpture. I believe we both love transforming raw materials and seeing where this takes us. We both use the rich surface generated by our materials to create our artwork.”
Colour and Form: Sculptures, Drawings and Frescoes
7th-19th December
The Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore, South Kensington, London SW7 2AR
Admission is free
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