Perceiving light and hope in concrete worlds
David Hepher is a landscape artist. He lives in the city for nine months of the year, and his imagery directly reflects the views that daily fill his gaze. At first glance the viewer might be overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness, perhaps feeling that the paintings are a political comment on urban housing, exploring ideas about poverty and decline. The artist, however, does not intend the works to carry a political message. His paintings are a direct communication with what he sees, an exploration of surfaces and environments that the artist finds beautiful and intriguing. As a child, he remembers industrial smog and dark living spaces being replaced by a sense of clean air, a general darkness being removed. The earliest work in the gallery is a view of Sheffield that perfectly captures this sense of dark urban sprawl. In direct contrast, 'Ruff n Tuff' appears to rise, phoenix-like from an oppressive industrial environment. We can speculate on their 'beauty' and the reality of day to day living in high-rise flats, but the whiteness of huge concrete buildings rising into the sky during the sixties seemed to David Hepher to symbolise something celebratory, aspirational and utopian.
David's process is an interesting interaction between photography and paint. He gathers a range of imagery using sketches, drawings and photography. Photographs are clipped and rejoined in order to create a composition and then the image is transferred onto huge canvases using the kind of large scale photographic processes that make it possible to present large scale images on the sides of buses. Concrete is then applied over parts of the image and the painted surface is built upon.
The vast scale of many of his paintings and the heavy physicality of concrete on canvas serves to make the environment tangible. It was intriguing to see the paintings in the artist's studio. Here, one is surrounded, overwhelmed by their scale. Huge canvases lean, one against the other, creating a layered panorama of urban environments. These environments are inhabited by human beings, yet David Hepher seldom includes people. Only rarely are they glimpsed as a shadowy presence through a window, or by graffiti - the marks left behind. Yet despite the huge scale and apparently unsympathetic concrete surfaces there is an intimacy to this work. They are incredibly tactile, loaded with a material that we are all familiar with, and then painted with subtle colourings. The fact that they are created with concrete somehow roots them in the environment that they describe. They are images both of and about the environment. Interestingly, when David paints in France he uses the earth and sand of this landscape to create his imagery, making works that have very different colourings and atmospheres.
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'The Capella Nuovo' |
'Buildings in naples with Castel Nuovo' |
After Thomas Jones Series |
Not all the works are huge in scale. A recent series of small images celebrate the work of the Welsh artist, Thomas Jones, particularly the paintings documenting his journey in Spain in the 1850's. It was a tradition of the time for those interested in the arts to embark on grand cultural tours of Europe. Thomas Jones was a gifted young artist and his landscape paintings capture qualities of light and atmosphere. There is also a directness and immediacy to the works that made an impression on David Hepher. The 'After Thomas Jones' Series' incorporates collaged imagery into the surface of the canvas, framed and almost concealed with concrete, paint and graffiti marks. These small works combine the historical and the contemporary, urban and rural, and perhaps also draw attention to differences in climate. The quality of light in southern European has the effect of sharpening and enhancing edges and colours, creating an atmosphere that shimmers and glimmers. Concrete in this environment is much more seductive than in the generally greyer northern European skies.
'After Thomas Jones Series'
A wide range of artists have influenced and inspired David Hepher. Reference has already been made to Thomas Jones and his romantic landscapes of the 19th Century. The work of L.S. Lowry has been important, particularly in his depiction of industrialised urban environments. The qualities of paint and light, and the sense of drama that pervades Edward Hopper's work also make a connection to the work on display, as well as the work of Anselm Kieffer for its scale and diverse use of media. The work can be seen in relation to contemporary artist Sean Scully whose harmonious and spiritual abstract paintings explore mood and light. Sean Scully has also utilised photographic elements in his paintings, exploring the interchange between the recognizable and the abstract worlds. Like David Hepher, he finds beauty in flaking and cracked surfaces, perhaps creating visual metaphors for physical and emotional experiences. David Hepher finds the work of The Boyle Family interesting and intriguing. Their ongoing collaborative work, 'Journey to the Surface of the Earth' has encompassed a series of different projects across the world in which they make random selections in order to isolate a rectangle of the earth's surface. This rectangle is then 'recreated' using fibreglass. Their work playfully encourages the viewer to consider reality and truth, making us aware that the world is not a fixed and permanent state, but undergoing constant change.
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