Moves Like Water

Exhibition dates: 29th March - 29th April.

Open Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 2pm - 5pm & Saturday, Sunday 12pm - 5pm. Free admission.

Note: The Gallery will be closed on the following days during lunch-time:

April 9, 14, 15, 16 and 30.

The development of the camera revolutionised the art world. For the first time, humans could gather true-to-life images, with growing immediacy, of the world around them. Much discussion has centred around what painting lost with the development of the camera, but it is worth considering what the development of photography oered. What would Degas’ dancer series have looked like if the artist had access to not only his memory and perception of movement, but photographic documentation capturing exact nuances? How would human perception of water been changed if artists had been able to capture its precise patterns and intricacies? How would artists have contended with the task of depicting subjects that are inherently about movement, on the two dimensional medium of paint and canvas?

The two artists behind ‘Moves like water’, Lee Putman and Constance Regardsoe are trying to answer these questions whilst exploring two very different subjects, swimmers and water, and contemporary hip hop dance. For both artists the process begins by using photography as an initial reference, from which they develop a response with paint, in a representational yet figurative style.

Constance Regardsoe was the 2020 winner of both the Bath Society of Arts main prize and Young Artist prize. She featured in Aesthetica’s 2021 list of the top 125 exciting contemporary artists of the year, and has work in private collections in the UK, US, Europe, Canada and Qatar, and last summer she was invited to the Pouch Cove artist residency and spent a month working and exhibiting there. She uses water to express idea of transience and impermanence, observing the specific configurations of the body, light, and water, that are wholly unique to the fleeting moment of capture. Alongside that, she seeks to explore the dual nature of water, both calming and life giving, but also, sudden, powerful and threatening.

Lee Putman was selected to exhibit at the 2022 Other Art Fair in London and was a 2020 quarter finalist of Sky Portrait artist of the year. Prior to being a painter, he was professionally involved in the UK hip hop scene for over a decade and has performed internationally. Lee explores how and why street dance is excluded from spaces occupied by the classical formats of dance such as ballet, despite the intense focus and discipline demanded from both practitioners. His work uses staple moves from the form, Adlocutio, Serpentine and Contra-posto, poses that are ubiquitous within the classical canon of western art, to draw telling parallels.

Both artists are interested in how fascinating links can be drawn between seemingly divergent subjects when one takes the time to observe. The juxtaposition of intensely fluid, and sharp and jagged movements featured in hip-hop and popping mirrors the simultaneously tranquil then violent undulations of water. Both painters are grappling with the fascinating challenge of depicting something intrinsically about movement within the confines of a stationary medium, whilst celebrating motion and the body.

IMPRESSIONS