Curated Collection

October 2023

For this month's curated collection we are pleased to share an installation with work by gallery artists Jonathan Barber, Michael Craik, Ivan De Menis and David Mankin.

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Even, oil and pigment on canvas, 61 x 39 cm

Jonathan Barber, a contemporary artist based in Edinburgh, creates atmospheric abstracted work based around light, darkness, shape, movement and presence. After graduating from the School of Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art (2008) Jonathan has continued to make and exhibit work as well as teach Art and Design at Primary, Secondary and College level. His recent work consists of large scale abstract landscapes on canvas and board alongside smaller more intricate studies on paper. His developed aesthetic is made up of dark weighty tones bringing depth and distance to the canvas. Accents of colour are skilfully used as compositional tools to entice the viewer to weave through layers and perspective.
view works from Jonathan here
Veil 2022_65, acrylic on wooden panel, 35 x 28 cm

Michael Craik’s practice explores the interplay of colour and repetition as a method of producing quiet, contemplative work concerned with colour, material quality and process. Craik creates paintings by repeatedly applying paint and removing it again. This process of reduction features throughout his work, alluding to forces of erosion that form our landscape. He allows the elemental qualities of the paint to determine the appearance of each work, creating contemplative, minimal paintings. The focus of these works often lies at the edges, where sanding reveals strata of paint, exposing layers of alternating colour that have been built up by brushing, pouring or spreading. In this sense, his work shares a relationship with geology, to the laying down and erosion of rock. Living in Scotland, one is constantly reminded of the forces that sculpt the land. Craik’s studio in Kinghorn, Fife, stands on a cliff overlooking the River Forth estuary. Surrounded by this expanse of water and the endless ebb and flow of the tide, Craik is aware that these processes have, over time, permeated his artistic practice.

view works by Michael here
Tessera, 1EE/r2, fabric, pigments, epoxy resin on wood, 26 (H) x 19 (W) x 14 (D) cm

Ivan De Menis (Italy), studied in the institute of Art in Vittorio Veneto and the Venice Academy of Fine Arts. He lives and works in the countryside of North Italy, close to Treviso. Ivan’s work, made of wooden pannels, is of a deceptive simplicity of appearence. He uses materials such as polystyrene and airball, traditionally used for packaging, to create intimate, refined tridimensional art pieces. The viewer is drawn in, allowed to see the building process behind the work as if looking at its beating heart and witnessing the unravelling of its beauty.

view works by Ivan here
Idle hill, mixed media on canvas, 122 x 122 cm

David Mankin lives and works in the south west of Cornwall. His dynamic and vivid abstracted Cornish landscape paintings have been exhibited in London and Cornwall and he has shown in a number of London art fairs. His paintings are in numerous private and corporate art collections. David’s abstract paintings not only draw inspiration from the dramatic Cornish coastline; the wild, empty moors; the big skies; but also the raw, physical elements of the landscape including the rocky outcrops; beach boulders; storm debris; winding farm tracks; surging seas and the ancient fields bordered with stone hedges. He enjoys getting out into the landscape and the elements that shape it – wind, sea, rain and man-made. These are the experiences that manifest themselves in his paintings.

view work by David here