The Oneiric Image at the Lloyd Gill Gallery

MEDIA RELEASE COURTESY: Lloyd Gill Gallery

This month's exhibition at The Lloyd Gill Gallery features the work of Pollock-Krasner award winning artist Eva Bosch. The show, entitled 'The Oneiric Image' will look at the work of artists who have drawn visual, conceptual or technical inspiration from the art that came out of the Surrealist movement.

Eva, whose many awards and residencies have taken her to Amsterdam, Taiwan & Senegal to work and study, also regularly passes on her knowledge and experiences as a visiting speaker/artist at institutions such as Eton College and The Royal College of Art in London. Her work, though often influenced by key Surrealist artists such as Joan Miro, is tied closely to her love of 'primitive' cave art and some of the earliest attempts to depict the world around us. Eva's canvases, such as 'Alexander The Great' are alive with vibrant colours and visual narrative, which demand attention.

The exhibition also showcases the work of the painter Mark Sheeky and the photographer Katia Hickmer. Mark, a self taught artist, only began painting in 2004 when he made a copy of an obscure Van Gogh for a competition, which gave him an appetite for painting and the drive to enhance and encourage what is clearly a natural ability to paint. By 2006 he had sold his first painting, and has since won numerous awards and prizes and exhibits frequently. His witty and surreal landscapes display an incredible ability to transfix the viewer in to attempting to decipher his many visual codes and symbols.

Katia is a recent graduate of Central St Martins College, London. She is a talented young photographer whose work attempts to interrogate the human condition, and in the images taken from the series 'Vein' she uses self portraiture and more importantly 'pose' to 'self investigate.' Katia has been widely exhibited in London, most notably at The Brick Lane Gallery.

The exhibition is curated by Jamie Durling, and begins with a preview on July 31st, and continues until August 27th.

Eva Bosche
Commentary by Matthew Tree,
It would be just too easy, too cosy, too convenient, to claim that Eva Bosch's work, especially over the last few years, has been influenced principally by that of her fellow Catalans Salvador Dalí (the dreamlike quality), Joan Miró (the quirky, unpredictable shapes) or Antoni Tàpies (the use of collage effect and diverse materials). Certainly these influences, some conscious, others less so, are present in many of her paintings, but when you look at these more carefully it becomes clear that Bosch has delved into many other potential sources of inspiration, which, unlike the three artists mentioned above, are far removed from her in time and often in place as well.

Some of her titles ('Africa Drawing', 'Africa Hombre Cerilla') give the game away from the start: her true concern is with the primitive, but in the sense of 'original', 'primary', or 'not derived' (the definitions are from Webster), and not the more commonly used one of 'crude' or 'rudimentary'.
Her acknowledged fascination with cave art, African art, and the art of the ancient cities of Asia Minor is not, for her, a simple question of aesthetics.

It is the excitement of contact with the earliest known attempts to depict the physical world, which still retain their capacity to astound, which still hint at their original magical intentions. This excitement, profoundly felt, is at the heart of the very best of Eva Bosch's work, recreating as it does the sense of wonder that emanates from the finest 'primitive' painting. Her work, then, complies with that condition which William Burroughs claimed was essential for any art which deserves the name: it has to 'make things happen' as he put it, that is to reach out to the onlooker and eliminate his or her initial inertia and indifference. Eva Bosch's live and astonishing paintings do precisely that.

The Lloyd Gill Gallery
Lee House
13 Beaconsfield Road
Weston - Super - Mare
Somerset
BS23 1YE

Preview July 31st
Exhibition Start Tuesday 3rd August on till 27th August
Curated by Jamie Durling (past Intern)
Open Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 4.30pm