Inspired by Geof Dyer’s confession that he did not even own a camera before writing his unique book on photography, ‘The Ongoing Moment’, I decided to write this book about jazz without being able to play a note.  My instrument was a secondhand Nikon F, and befriended by the late Declan Haun, my amateur efforts became more intense.  He insisted I should start with a standard 50mm lens, but I would later use a 135mm telephoto, ideal for those ‘across the streets’ shots.

Except where noted they are all printed on Agfa paper and could be classed as vintage prints, that also form the basis of subsequent photomontages.  Taking a clue from Ornette Coleman’s ‘Tomorrow is the Question’ album title, the recent collages feature a series of Mitchell cigarette cards ‘The World of Tomorrow’ from 1936 – the Swing Era – and continue with ‘Fragments of Utopia’ as part of the incomplete Modernist project.   David Wild

A key aspiration of any artist is to develop a distinctive style. Postmodern and playful, but never merely cute, at the same time both delicate and monumental, riddling and simple, Oliver Barratt’s work is sui generis, and this latest exhibition reaffirms that fact.

His work seems keyed at once to galactic largeness and infinitesimal smallness. ‘There is,’ as Vladimir Nabokov said, ‘in the dimensional scale of the world a kind of delicate meeting place…a point arrived at by diminishing large things and enlarging small ones, that is intrinsically artistic.’ Oliver Barratt seems to embody this artistic vision in his sculptures; his pieces seem at one moment to gesture at subatomic particles and in the next to hint at abysmal stretches of space and time.

Oliver’s work involves the negotiation between stillness and movement. Many of his pieces seem conceived at moments of connection or disconnection. In their elegance, instants of motion seem fused, frozen, arrested, with dynamic swirls of energy being wrestled and captured as in a snapshot. If Paul Klee is said to have taken the line for a walk, then Oliver Barratt seems to take the line for a violent dance.

The third feature that typifies this work is the polished, boldly monochromatic finish. The shapes seem to evoke congealments. Matter transforms from liquid to solid, as in Along Those Lines. The structures at first appear fragile, yet the impression one gains close up is one of robustness. Burnished, blood-red, white or ultramarine, there is here a tensile strength and muscularity, an elemental toughness – cellular, seminal, endlessly regenerative. But rather than being too neatly closed, many of the sculptures remain open as the substructure is exposed, a steel bone stripped of its skin of resin, lending a final quality of rawness.

The elastic sense of scale, the poise between motion and stillness, and the monochrome polish and strength – when combined, produce Oliver Barratt’s signature pieces. These new sculptures are numinously beautiful, redolent of heat yet supremely cool. They range from intricate, Escheresque constructions to linear squiggles and globular clusters, but each is unmistakably a Barratt.

Chris Greenhalgh

Until 1st September the gallery is open by appointment.  Please leave a message on 0207 485 0923  / 077 327 80946 / 0792 628 0129  and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

September Programme :

9 September – 1 October ‘Nightwalks’

Dark Trees – paintings and etchings by Pamela Clarkson

Frenchman’s Creek, Cornwall – ‘C’ type prints on aluminium by Ian Brown

14-18 September we have a stand at the Royal College of Art in the 20/21 British Art Fair

Think of clay and the mind connects to the earth; to primitive modelling and to mankind’s first sculpture; to simple vessels hardened by fire in order to bring fluid to lips, food to table; to early experiences of digging hands into damp matter and the joy of forming solid shapes from it. Clay as a baked substance suggests heaviness, solidity, a certain obdurate robustness (despite its fragility when dropped or smashed). Yet Sarah Scampton’s beautiful ceramics defy such expectations. They seem to push at the boundaries of what clay can do.  Tall upright vessels emerge from the ground with gossamer-like thinness. Tablets of clay made on the vertical plane appear so fine that their buckling surface might be made from stretched leather or parchment.  Enclosed rectangular forms possess subtly undulating walls, suggesting the exhalation of a breath of air within them, gently pushing their contours outwards.  In short, what should be heavy appears here as light, almost weightless…

In every instance, the object is enlivened by striations of irregular but finely persistent marks upon the surface which provide visual and tactile interest but which are in effect, a record of the tracks of the joins that have gone into their making.  Occasionally a further geometric grid is drawn on top by tracing with a dremel onto the surface, adding a further dimension to the palimpset of underlying marks.  Colour and texture are equally important contributors to the quiet and compelling nature of this work.  The tones are muted, the surface matt rather than glazed, and the colours reminiscent of slate roofs, brick walls, pale azure skies and memories of the warmth of further climes.  The skin of each work has a soft, burnished sheen which is highly tactile and warm to the touch – the product of numerous firings which allow the various oxides to sear the final colour into the clay. . .