2006-11-25 until 2006-12-17
Transition
London, , UK United Kingdom
Chris Humphreys’ strangely beautiful paintings depict that misty area in which nature gets caught up between fantasy and reality. His first solo show Woodland Chicken World at Transition Gallery, enhances this sense of mystery with a touch of exotic orientalism to give his new paintings of common or garden birds an aristocratic grace.Influenced by Chinoiserie, a centuries-old decorative style based on highly embellished and exaggerated Chinese design, Humphreys’ sets his birds (most particularly chickens) in an intricate, ornamental world of paint.
Chinoiserie has an element of the homemade about it in its often misinformed imitation, giving it not only an element of the absurd but also an attitude towards borrowing and history, which is pertinent to Humphrey’s practice.
Humphreys’ very contemporary paintings have a fluidity and brightness that has made him highly popular with both interior designers and academics alike and Woodland Chicken World (part of Transition Gallery’s Supernature season) is accompanied by a talk on Chinoiserie by Gill Saunders of the V&A on Monday 11th December at 7pm.
Meanwhile Humphreys’ humble chickens freed from their restrictive pens and given a sense of elegance and dignity in their new gallery location take on a level of art seriousness where the birds, the paint and the decoration are all brought to the same level of heightened reality.
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