ABSTRACTIONS

Elisabeth Heathfield
Rosine Cubitt

November 2011

The year’s closing exhibition presents the work of emerging artists Elisabeth Heathfield and Rosine Cubitt who both explore non-linguistic, abstract sound sources for visual inspiration.

Elisabeth Heathfield’s canvases bring to mind a snowbound version of the abstract paintings and theories of the father of abstraction Wassily Kandinsky and his synaesthetic approach to painting and music as evidenced by his remarks about listening to a performance of Wagner’s Lohengrin, “I saw all my colours in spirit. Wild, almost mad lines drew themselves in front of me.” Similarly, Heathfield’s work is deeply influenced by experimental music and sound as she too seeks to express nonverbal realms of experience. The selection of canvases from her recent output contain raw punctuations of coloured forms and lines on pale expanses, evoking a sparse but joyful interplay.

Rosine Cubitt, on the other hand, evokes the pregnant female form and inaudible dialogue with the womb in her rather restrained series entitled Poured Curved Paintings. Conceived while she was pregnant Cubitt’s artwork began to mirror the expanding curves of her own body as her child grew within. Intuitively cutting out the curves of the stretcher for each of her canvases she then mixed paints to a fluid consistency and poured it from squeeze bottles onto the undulating canvas. Though familiar with the paint’s flow, an element of chance is always in play as the liquid eased itself along the slopes and rises before drawing to a halt. The resulting compositions very much resemble a mysterious musical notation, in which notes of various colours dance on swelling and receding monochromatic fields.