Our first solo show from Martin Poppelwell in the new gallery space.

New Paintings + Drawings Etc…Etc…

“In the ditch the grass was thick and high, I took off my hat and pressed about my face the long leafy stalks, then I could smell the earth, the smell of the earth was the grass that my hands wove round my face till I was blinded. I ate too, a little grass”. (1)

The subject that I have always considered when making paintings is how to attach them to something (2), a thing, real in the world, real in my world. This may be kind of stating the obvious, but it’s usually the case at the outset. And as I write this, it is all too clear, I know, that the initial destination is rarely, if not ever, either the trajectory taken or the posture / position one ends up in at the end. Sure, this is an entrenched cliche for many, but I have alway’s felt that cliches are common well worn tracks where consensus, even if frustrating, may take hold.

So the stuff, the things, the matter, that I am hurling, making, forming, around presently is the mess of eating, sauerkraut, eggs, beetroot and bread, drink and sauce. There are animal and insect, crawling, lying, stationary, static etc etc plant, dirt, wet and dry, system and versions of. There is light and the variation it infers, the way it interferes with how we see, how it plays with surfaces, and adjusts how we may feel….etc

(excerpt from catalogue text for ‘grasseaters’ 2022, Martin Poppelwell)

1. Molloy, Samuel Beckett Trilogy, Alfred Knopf, Everyman’s Library, 1997.(pp26)
2. I would also like to add that the subject is also to be ‘liberated’, from being ‘too’ attached to anything in particular, to leave it somewhat on the loose.