For her third solo at the gallery, Kunie Sugiura is exhibiting works from her recent series, The Artist Papers, portraits inspired by and done in collaboration with art world personalities. Sugiura subverts the usual conventions of realistic photographic portraits, by depicting shadowy life size silhouettes rather than the visible surface details of her subjects. Her works conjure up theatrical effects produced by characteristic gestures and hidden aspects of the people she portrays. Like silhouette cut outs, photograms have the quality of something factual since they represent a direct trace of their subjects. Sugiura’s images turn the human body into a canvas while at the same time suggesting the presence of an inner metaphysical component, resulting in a startling commentary on the illusion of reality and the truth below the surface of things. As described by the artist, “human beings consist of body and soul, but when their physicality is reduced to a shadow, what emerges is the often overlooked cerebral psychological content of the individual”. For her portrait of Takashi Murakami, the distinctive details of the artist’s facial profile (his goatee, round spectacles and ponytail) are reflected in formal aspects of the floating cartoon elements that are the core of his work.

Hazel Walker: Elsewhere

Scottish painter Hazel Walker currently lives and works in the west of Ireland. Inspired by the muted light of the northern latitudes, Walker’s mysterious, pared down landscapes have a calm, lyrical presence, where isolated, humble, solitary objects and elements: pine trees, sheds, beehives, telephone poles are observed as if in a state of heightened awareness. This is further emphasized by Walker’s obsessive attention to the painting surface suggesting the character and quality of a modern day icon. “My small paintings have their origins in the desolate landscape of the Shetland Islands in the north of Scotland. They do not refer to a particular place, but rather are a distillation of a location or a structure that has a particular resonance for me. Stripped of detail, the starkness of the image is intensified. I have in my mind always the sound of what I am painting… editing that in a visual way, to create a subtle disquieting moment.”