Gallery opening times:
Saturday 30th June & Sunday 1st July, 11am – 3pm
Saturday 7th & Sunday 8th July, 11am – 3pm
Preview: Friday 29th June, 6pm – 8pm
Encrusted blobs of piped paint, globular cords and congealed smears threaten to engulf their wooden supports. There is a focus on surface detail and physical affect upon the viewer by paintings existence real space; the painting no longer a ‘modernist container’, protrudes, projects and even sometimes extrudes paint onto the gallery floor.
Luscious and excessive Gale’s paintings’ evoke a sensory experience – particularly the desire to touch. Playing on the curiosity within human nature and utilizing the general gallery convention of, ‘look but don’t touch’ presents a temptation to the viewer. This is embodied not only in Gale’s choice of media from glitter, to glazes and fluorescent pigments but also in the bulbous curvilinear forms revealing a conspicuous link to Rococo stucco work – often asymmetrical and appearing to be in a state of flux.
Gale’s process is at once additive and reductive, paint maybe added with a brush, piping bag, palette knife or finger or subtracted in the same way. Each mark and colour made is responded to by another or a wipe clean of the ‘slate’. A dialogue emerges between, accident, intention and serendipity. This dialogue continues in the arrangement of the work, the paintings exist in couples perhaps in conversation with on another to discuss their similarities or differences or even to boast a more attractive colour.
Cosmetic colours inspire Gale’s palette and is re-affirmed in her titles, like Sugar, Behave, Obsess and even Pink Pigeon. Her saccharine pastel palette is exaggerated often, into day-glow candy hues, sometimes accompanied by complimentary colours and sometimes those intended to jar. For instance an insipid fleshy yellow may sit next to the brightest fluorescent pink, not only does this create a clash but brings into question the initial attractiveness of Gale’s work.
As part of a wider audience development plan, 36 Lime Street is proud to present a series of new projects for the third year of its gallery space. A new programme of exhibitions and events has been co-ordinated to run from June through to November 2012 which will encompass painting, sculpture, installation, drawing and three-dimensional design.
