Pepney Gallery is pleased to host Love in Art, a virtual exhibition collection of contemporary artworks that celebrate and reflect past historic artist’s works, who found inspiration because they were wounded and love-drunk.
Love in Art opens online on 11th December 2021 at 8pm GMT on Facebook and Instagram simultaneously. Join the Facebook live link here to R.S.V.P. and view https://fb.me/e/XhtMlRJ0
Featured Artists: eBeck, Francisco Bravo Cabrera also known as "Bodo Vespaciano", Gian Joseph, Jeremiah Sam Marcus, Joerg Kuplens, Kat Abbott, Root Yarden, Salome Kobulashvili, Zorbari Dinee-Laago, Arzu Arslan, Bianca Siu Davies, Cameron- Unique, Dorothee- Unique, Mahboobeh Barazesh, Oksana Zalesskaya, Peter Pirker and Rose Ansari.
Love is often confused with the idea of losing oneself into something that is considered larger than life, than the self or the sum of one’ parts. Out of the desire for human connection comes a desire to fuse with another person, for the two to become in essence one, to know another as completely and as deeply as one knows oneself.
This is what Erich Fromm in The Art of Loving describes as immature, symbiotic love. For Fromm, this sort of love is both transitory and illusory, and cannot compare to the mature form, in which union is attained through the retention of the individual self rather than loss through symbiosis. Mature love, and the resulting knowledge of another person, can only be attained through the act of love, rather than the illusory state that is immature love.
Fromm claims that the deepest, most pressing need of mankind is to overcome a sense of loneliness and separation. As humans, we possess the unique characteristic of self-awareness. This self-awareness means that each individual has an understanding of him or herself as a distinctly separate entity from the larger group be it family, community, or society.
“For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn; But learning time is always a long, secluded time, and therefore loving, for a long time ahead and far on into life, is solitude, a heightened and deepened aloneness for the person who loves. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished, and still incoherent?). It is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person.” -Rainer Maria Rilke
The Lion in Love is an 1836 oil on canvas painting in the Academic-Romantic style by Camille Roqueplan (1800–1855). It shows a scene of a lion allowing its claws to be pared after falling in love with a shepherdess so that he will not endanger her. Though the painter adds an erotic undercurrent reminiscent of Delilah cutting Samson's hair as well as a Romantic spin on Beauty and the Beast by making the woman the one to pare the claws, thus portraying female beauty as life-threatening, maddening and ultimately fatal. In comparison to "Hidden Emotion" by Jeremiah Sam Marcus, which reflects for so many years in his life he hated myself, he had no love for himself or who he was and he hid his emotions. Sam Marcus’ artwork is to represent that experience in his life.
Arzu Arslan’s artwork Spring attempts to show excitement of the heart which suddenly falls in love. Arslan’s motifs have no figures apparent in the piece; however what Arslan captures is the feeling and excitement emotion of love. This is evident in the colours and union of pattern obtained by Arslan. Spring can be compared to Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss. Klimt was one of art’s great sensualists, and few pictures express the rapturous union of two people quite like his painting, The Kiss. As historical writing describes ‘is a painting that makes the heart beat faster’ Klimt once remarked that “all art is erotic”. No painting sums this up better than The Kiss.’
Bianca Siu Davies documents the end stages of a life in her watercolour and gouache paintings. Siu Davies states, ‘Loss is complex and multi-dimensional. While we often address the grief over losing someone you love, more often than not, there is also an intense grappling of residual resentment, anger and frustration. The finality of death forces us to have to come to terms with imperfect human relationships’. Milo Dickinson, specialist on painting and sculpture, states that The tomb of Richard Fitzwilliam and his wife Eleanor comes to mind in regards to reflecting on Siu Davies ideals around love & death in art. The human empathetic connection that unites us as one in those final stages makes us realise that we are all vulnerable and we will meet again eternally on the other side. Disckinson highlights my remarks on death and love very well; he states, ‘one of the most touching relics of love a few years ago when I walked into the great gothic fortress of Chichester Cathedral, near England’s south coast. There lies Richard Fitzwilliam and his wife Eleanor, side by side, his right hand ungloved and lightly resting in hers, bonded together in this stone tomb for eternity. ‘I later found out that the monument inspired a poem by Philip Larkin, with the immortal final line, “What will survive of us is love.” A touching rendition that we are all one and our connection is through love, to be there for someone be it at the final stages of our life to comfort, or indeed eternally.
ebeck’s artwork highlights visuals of words, for this exhibition he works souly with the word ‘LOVE’. ebeck’s though process around this word is based on the governments around the globe having different ways to handle corona. ‘Some with success’, ebeck states, ‘and some failed more or less. But, in the beginning, the health departments only had one option -to help with care and love.’ Robert Indiana’s historic artwork comes to mind cutting right to the heart of the issue and just put the big word out there. Four oh-so precious letters (LOVE) rest, lean, press and merge against each other … just as loving couples do.
Francisco Bravo Cabrera also known as "Bodo Vespaciano" in the art world is on a quest for the perfect mix of improvisation, spontaneity and rhythm in his artwork. He is a “jazz” artist. Bodo Vespaciano states, ‘I create following the three rules of Jazz music: Improvisation, the player composes as he plays and the rhythm. Colors are art in their entirety and convey messages without the need for figures but figures speak to the depth of the human brain being archetypes of our own thoughts and actions’. I compare Vespaciano’s artwork to that of historic artic Kerry James Marshall. Anyone who has ever been a wallflower knows the electric moment when you are standing cheek to cheek with your love on the dance floor. Kerry James Marshall heightens the intimacy of the occasion by clearing the room but the two dishes on the table in the foreground indicate maybe this was a one-on-one evening at home all along in her historic artwork ‘Dance with Me’.
Gian Joseph’s artwork focuses on the landscape, nature, and animals, particularly elephants. Elephants are a recurring theme in the artist’s art practice because of the matriarch herd structure in the elephant kingdom. The work features nature and often incorporates fallen leaves, sticks, and vines for realism. The work incorporates earth tones symbolizing the connection of Joseph’s experience to nature and nurture of environment; gold highlighting beauty, power and connection to divinity. Joseph’s artwork translates well to the artpiece The Elephants is a 1948 painting by the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. Dalí’s elephants represent the future and are also a symbol of strength. They are often shown carrying obelisks, which are symbols of power and domination, and hold phallic overtones. Both artworks embody the union of the elephants facing each other in union mirror like manner.
Joerg Kuplens states about their artwork that ‘painting and graphics are constantly moving on the borderline between concreteness and abstraction, whereby nature, right down to its smallest structural units, functions first and foremost as an indirect source of motifs and inspiration’; which is not to unlike the drawing ‘Bathers’ by Paul Cézanne. Cézanne’s inner life verged on chaos. “I paint as I see, as I feel,” he famously said — “and I have very strong sensations.”
Kat Abbott’s work, she states is about expressing energy, visions and experiences symbolically through colour, line and process. Her work began entirely intuitively but is balanced formulaically. She loves juxtaposing the real, imaginary and combining the abstract and photographic styles - it always excites her. In comparison to Gerhard Richter Painting, Abstraktes Bild. Richter's work is described as more in the 'metaphysical' abstract tradition. His paintings show the results of paint being poured and dripped on as well as swiped and painted. Richard’s artwork holds the union of opacity that is in Abbott’s artwork.
Root Yarden’s photographic performance in the landscape capture the artist interacting with the land. Elegant, Yarden, carries herself embodied within the distant horizon. She is part of and one with the land. Leap into the Void, 1960 by Yves Klein is described as a seamless "documentary" photograph. There is a series of photographs to illustrate the story the artist is portraying. Yaren works in a similar way capturing from the one scene, different stances and movements in one seamless stream.
Salome Kobulashvili is captivated by the form, by the way, that a gesture can speak to us. Mainly she uses sculpture in jewelry and while her sculpted figures convey authentic emotions and relationships, they serve as archetypes that transcend the context of their story. Her background in dentistry gave her the ability to think and create in a different and creative way. The stances and emotion of love/lust in the piece reminds me of the sculpture The Kiss, 1882, marble sculpture by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. The embracing nude couple depicted in the sculpture appeared originally as part of a group of reliefs decorating Rodin's monumental bronze portal The Gates of Hell, commissioned for a planned museum of art in Paris.
Dinee-laago Zorbari reflects on how touch is central to her exploration as an artist. By choosing to create work that is predominately made using only her hands and with materials that are traditionally used by women, she enters the dialogue of pain with empathy and honesty. Imprinted in her art is how we use our bodies and our words to harm and heal; and question what our role is individually and culturally which reflect on gender, motherhood, environmentalism, and trauma. Zorbari’s artwork is reflected in Mother and Child, 1934 by Dame Barbara Hepworth, whereby an abstract sculpture captues a mother and child in a love embrace.
