Gallery 1
4 Cromwell Place
SW7 2JE
12.9 - 17.9.23
The Finch Project proudly presents Botanica, a group exhibition of new work by five international artists: Arpaïs Du Bois, Rosie McGuinness, Sabine Finkenauer, Wayne Pate, and Christina Zimpel.
Botanica celebrates the artist’s relationship with nature. Working across a range of mediums, there is a play with classical artistic genres including still life, landscape, and botanical drawing as well as making more abstract works drawn from natural forms. These are works of close observation and intimate personal meaning.
Arpaïs Du Bois (b. 1973, Belgium) lives and works in Antwerp. Her drawings and texts are simultaneously sharp and ambiguous; playful and poetic observations of the world that surrounds her. Out of an intense involvement, she reflects on societal issues, big and small, and the often unnoticed moments and events that shape our lives. Amidst the abundance of impressions that come to us every day, Du Bois’s drawings create a moment of stillness and reflection. They offer the viewer a resting point, a way to frame the chaotic reality.
Sabine Finkenauer (b. 1961 Germany) The realm of botany with its variety of shapes and colours has been a source of inspiration from the very beginning. The structure of plants in the various stages of growth as well as the symmetrical, ornamental composition of flowers has influenced my repertoire of forms in numerous variations.
Rosie McGuinness (b. 1984, London, UK) has become known for her figurative works and textile design. Botanica sees her working with the patterns in nature, using colour and repeated motifs to make still lifes that are both observational and abstract. These pieces are drawn from the plants and foliage local to McGuinness’s studio in Deptford, South-East London, and in more domestic settings. There is a sense of constant attention and activity to this recent work, so that seeing and drawing are one in the same.
Wayne Pate (b. Texas, USA) has lived and worked in Brooklyn, New York City, since 1992. The Iris has become the reoccurring theme in this ongoing series due to its natural shape and silhouette which resonates with Wayne’s established graphical sensibilities. Creating a harmony between nature and an abstract representation has long been a focus and now, with clarity of thought and acknowledgement of all that has come to pass, Wayne’s work has shifted into a state of reductive visual relief which presents with a poetic simplicity infused with a sense of creative exhalation.
Christina Zimpel (b. 1961, Perth, Australia) lives and works in New York City. ‘My approach to making botanical paintings and drawings is to apply the same amount of maximum personality I apply to my human forms. Neither make perfect sense. I try to capture the charm and the madness of city weeds I see on vacant lots and tree pits on my walk to my studio at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. They sprout amongst each other and combine to grow as magical new species, almost prehistoric or folkloric. I don’t try to control the work. I just start my painting anywhere on the page and let them grow into whatever they were meant to be’.
Text
Chris Newlove Horton