Studio Show Event                                                                         

West Hill Studio experimental installations 1968

These images show two experiments using devices to articulate the space in my studio at West Hill, Putney 1968. These lead to the development of the exhibition at the Greenwich Theatre Gallery in 1969 and to the installation I created for the Studio Shows event in 1970.

Installation piece: adhesive panels.

                  ‘Plateau and Plain”

                  68” x 68”  Acrylic on cotton                   1968

            Installation piece:

            plastic adhesive panels.

           Installation:

           2 diagonal forms,

           Acrylic/cotton 3" x 96" 1968           

           (no longer in existence)

The studio show was an event organised by Edward Lucie-Smith and involved a tour of six artists’ studios across London by mostly dealers, curators and critics. Nigel Hall and David Oxtoby were among the other artists involved. I was invited to participate in this event directly as a result of the Greenwich Theatre Gallery exhibition.

I believe that this may have been the first event of this type in this country. There were at that time, none of the large groupings of artist studios that now exist, such as those run by Space and Acme. Open studios became a common event soon after.

In this show, the architecture was of less interest to me, I was more interested in the space as a room. I wanted to make large-scale works but did not think of these as museum pieces. I believed that it should be possible for these works to exist in a domestic setting despite their formality: that they ought to be accessible outside of a museum or gallery situation. I did not know how this would be achieved so this event was a perfect opportunity to try it out.A white room can be an irritation if it is brightly lit as this was: the intention being, to free the marks from the surfaces to float in the space. The floor was intended to be disruptive of the space: a platform, to place the spectator in an unusual position relative to the room and to the works in it. The walls were also defined to give a certain space to the room and to make a play with the marks in the paintings.

The time I spent in the room working an these paintings and the way that they began to form up led me to anticipate that the paintings might be analogous to ideas that I had about on the subject of time. An internal discussion or feelings, concerned with linearity, velocity, direction, moment, continuity and planes all seemed to be inform and form the works.

The studio show was an event organised by Edward Lucie-Smith and involved a tour of six artists’ studios across London by mostly dealers, curators and critics. Nigel Hall and David Oxtoby were among the other artists involved. I was invited to participate in this event directly as a result of the Greenwich Theatre Gallery exhibition.

Installation of paintings at West Hill Studio 1969

            Left: ‘Time as a swing’ 68” x 112” 

               Acrylic on cotton 1969   (private collection)

Right: ‘Time Transfixed’ 68” x 96”

Acrylic on cotton  1969 (Coll. of Helen Jessup)

            Left: ‘Time as a swing’ 68” x 112”

                Acrylic on cotton 1969   (Private Collection)

Right ‘Time Transfixed’ 68” x 96”

Acrylic on cotton 1969

(Collection of Helen Jessup)

            Installation view of studio show at West Hill

                with form of the artist in the space

           Right: ‘Time as a swing’   68” x 112”   

               Acrylic on cotton 1969   (Private Collection)

               Left:  ‘The passage of Time’

               68” x 108” Acrylic on cotton 1969

‘Plateau and Plain’ 68” x 68”

Acrylic on cotton 1969