NEWS:
Finalist.
The John Ruskin Prize 2014
‘Recording Britain Now’
(Winner to be announced June 27th 2014)
Millenium Gallery
Sheffield.
http://www.campaignfordrawing.org/competitions/ruskin.aspx
http://www.museums-sheffield.org.uk/museums/millennium-gallery/home
Artwave West
11th April 24th May 2014
http://www.artwavewest.com
Hide Gallery
“That’s Not What”
February 2014
http://hidegallery.co.uk
Hide Gallery
“Swimming Against The Tide”
27th September-20th October 2013
http://hidegallery.co.uk
Winner of The Door Prize For Painting, March 2012,
www.thedoorprize.co.uk
Solo show with
Lab 610 De Faveri Contemporary Art Gallery, Sovramonte, Italy.
www.defaveriarte.it
“Nurtured Landscape” runs from the 14th April to 13th May 2012.
Sonia Stanyard
By Kristy Gosling, Fine Art Photographer.
Initially these works appear to be first and foremost engaged with
process, and almost incidentally referencing nature and the
landscape. That is not to say that they are un-considered as
there exists in all these pieces thoughtfulness played out through
beautifully muted palettes and a depth of field which is surprisingly
photographic. More that, inherent in these works is a playfulness, an
innocent experimentation with the medium, as though the forms exist
primarily to draw parallels between the way that paint behaves in
response to forces such as gravity or liquidity and for example the
manner in which a tree grows, or a mist moves over lowlands.
Then comes the realisation that these paintings operate in a unique
space between realism and abstraction, there is a curious dualism here,
any hints of realism are immediately denied, undermined by brave and
sweeping revelations of the mediums characteristics, dripping paint or
brushstrokes in a background wash. There is an unmistakable
essence of the self-consciousness of the artist about them, which can
be perceived as modesty, honesty.
The motives for this kind of work are naturally complex and deeply
personal and it is perhaps eloquent that peripheries and inaccessible
places feature frequently.
News Continued:
Artwave West, Dorset www.artwavewest.com
June 2012 dates to be announced
Shortlisted for The Door Art Prize 2012, exhibition March 2012,
Centrespace Gallery, Bristol www.thedoorprize.co.uk
Shortlisted for The Open West 2012, exhibition 3rd to 31st March 2012,
Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester wwwtheopenwest.org.uk
Previous Shows:
Sonia Stanyard and Amy Albright
By Martin Goold
...Subtle and delicate shifts of colour, calm expanses of reflected
light or deeply glowing twilight atmospheres, characterise Stanyard’s
moving and quietly contemplative landscape paintings. Reference points
in the landscape, a tree, a bridge, a window, are caught between
materialising and dissolving, and precise detail and definition melt
away into diffusion. These veiled visions that float as if in a dream
might be seen as melancholic, but in this stillness a profoundly
poetic, optimistic connection with both the power and the fragility of
the natural world is made.
Far more than specific identifiable places, these softly evocative
landscapes emerge out of a composite of Stanyard’s experiences. Violet
Lodge for example refers to her travels in 2007 through vast and
deserted American landscapes, finding abandoned semi-derelict cabins in
the woods that inspired a variety of ambiguous interpretations:
forlorn, secret, magical. The weathered peeling surfaces of these
rudimentary structures opened up numerous painterly possibilities.
Stanyard has worked from this subject several times but this latest
version is full of a new spirit of discovery, as if familiarity with
the motif has allowed her to enrich and revitalise the painting
process. In Colony the misted, mountainous space is accented by a lush,
almost Amazonian, section in the lower right of the painting; Stanyard
was reading Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness at the time and the title
of the painting references this trajectory of influence. A more
constant motivating force throughout her work comes from the sublime
qualities in Russian and Scandinavian art and the Romanticism of Caspar
David Freidrich, as well as from the expressive power of abstraction,
Mark Rothko in particular.
These examples typify an approach that deliberately avoids location
sketches or photographs in favour of written notes that capture the
emotive responses to places, and where the ensuing activity of painting
has a life of its own. In the studio she floods the surface with
translucent fluid paint, tilting the canvas to make coloured
diffusions, carefully controlling the unfolding activity, and
delicately accentuating suggestions. The original subject remains
important but by the time the work is completed and titled it is merely
a delicate thread connecting to a new lyricism that has emerged through
the liberty of the painting itself...
Sonia Stanyard and Amy Albright runs 16 March – 09 April at Artwave
West Gallery, Morcombelake, Dorset, DT6 6DY. Telephone: +44 (0) 1297
489746. Open Wednesday-Saturday 10am – 4pm and at other times by
appointment.
Sonia Stanyard, born 1973, Yorkshire. Lives and works in London.
BA hons Fine Art, Southampton
SELECTED SHOWS:
Waterhouse & Dodd, Group Show, Cork Street, London, 2006
Redmill Gallery, Group Show, Vermont, USA, 2007
International Art Prize, Paul Barr, Chelsea, New York, 2008
“Art of Ideas”, Curated by Stephen Snoddy, Baskerville House,
Birmingham, 2009
Four Square Fine Arts, Group Show, Lewes, East Sussex, 2007, 2008,
2009, 2010
Artwave West, Group Show, Dorset, 2009, 2010
Art London, Chelsea, London, 2009, 2010
Basel Art Fair, Switzerland, Waterhouse & Dodd, June
2011
Nature Matters, Four Square Fine Arts, Ditchling,
East Sussex, August/September 2011
Art Verona, Italy, De Faveri Contemporary Art, October 2011
COMPETITIONS:
“National Open”, Festival Hall, Chichester, November 2008
“Artsway Open”, Contemporary Art in the New Forest, Sway, Hampshire,
December 2008 – February 2009
“Surface Gallery Open Show”, Surface Gallery, Nottingham, July 2010
“Lynn Painter Stainers Award”, Painters Hall, London, November 2010
Arte Leguna, Venice, Italy. Special Award Winner 2011
Salon Art Prize, Matt Roberts Gallery, Vyner Street, London.
Finalist 2011
The Door Prize For Painting, Centrespace Gallery, Bristol. Finalist
17th – 28th March 2012 www.thedoorprize.co.uk
AWARDS:
Scholarship award to paint at the Vermont Studio Centre, October 2007
National Lottery Award for research and travel, 2007
COLLECTIONS:
Chris Abani, Author, Los Angeles, USA
Southlands Hospital, Worthing, Sussex, 2 Public Art Pieces
Various private collections
