ROLLO Contemporary Art, 51 Cleveland steret, London W1T 4JH
THE INFLUENCE OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN PAINTING
3rd June - 10th July 2009
ROLLO Contemporary Art presents a group exhibition of international painters whose works display a relationship to the photographic medium. The works by these artists remain inherently 'painterly'; displaying confident application of paint and visibly bold brushstrokes, yet in a variety of ways these paintings create a dialogue with photographic practice and place painting within a larger context of imagery.
Artists
Tiina Heiska (b.1959. Finnish, lives and works in Finland)
Andrew Hollis (b. 1974 South African, lives and works in U.K.)
Antonio Santin (b. 1978 Spanish, lives and works in Germany)
"Santin's larger than life paintings of women's faces seem reminiscent of cosmetic advertising campaigns, where attractive faces are exclusively focused upon and isolated against stark non-descript backgrounds.
The starting point of Santin's painting process is indeed to photograph models in his studio. However, when translating these photographs into paint, Santin disturbs his sugary sweet images by applying abstract gestures of paint over the surface of the photo-realist painted faces, obscuring the original image and immediately changing its intentions.
Santin's images are imbued with a provocative edge, a painterly violation of photographic intentions - whilst simultaneously suggesting a celebration of the freedom of paint, enlivening an image from the flatness and fixed, controlled nature of the photographic image.
In Santin's work, paint dominates over photography to suggest the artist has ultimate control to manipulate and revel in the freedom of making" (ROLLO press release)
