Nau mai, haere mai, welcome to EyeContact. You are invited to respond to reviews and contribute to discussion by registering to participate.

JH

Bedford Paintings

AA
View Discussion
Whitney Bedford, Untitled Shipwreck (the not. knot), 2010, ink and oil on board. Whitney Bedford installation of paintings (detail) at Starkwhite Whitney Bedford, Untitled Iceberg (Loves an edge), 2010, ink and oil on board. Whitney Bedford, Untitled Birds (Towards December), 2010, ink and oil on board. Whitney Bedford, Untitled Shipwreck (touched), 2010, ink and oil on board. Whitney Bedford, Zurichtopia, 2010, ink and oil on board. Whitney Bedford, Untitled Shipwreck (rocked), 2010, ink and oil on board. Whitney Bedford, Untitled Iceberg (Sweetheart), 2010, ink and oil on board. Whitney Bedford, Land Land (Golden), 2010, ink and oil on board. Whitney Bedford, Untitled Lost Ship (f.f.), 2010, ink and oil on board.

The Starkwhite show is particularly interesting because of the shipwreck theme being placed over loud poppy colours that seem to introduce an element of irony. The historical imagery is deliriously incongruous here, not being about contemporary consumerism as perhaps you might expect, and rarely with brooding background ambiences. It's an enigmatic and likeable show exulting in demonstrations of manual skill mixed with cleverly loaded, ambiguous subject matter.

Auckland

 

Whitney Bedford
From here to there

 

7 December 2010 - 19 January 2011

Los Angeles painter Whitney Bedford has had her work shown occasionally in Auckland in small group shows at Starkwhite or St. Paul Street, but From here to there is her first proper solo presentation.

It impresses not only because of her considerable paint handling and drawing skills (she uses ink and oil together on board panels) but also because of the very bold nature of her hang. In the big downstairs space at Starkwhite she has placed a single painting near the righthand corner near the window, and the other nine across the room in a packed cluster, fitting in the corner diagonally opposite.

Bedford has a graphic flair for illustrative rendering mixed with a gestural painter’s bravado. Her colourful images exploit a lively painthandling, and oddly enough seem very Australian - a blend say of Sidney Nolan with Ken Orchard. Everything is beautifully controlled, being wild but not too frenetic or chaotic. Never dull either, but perfectly pitched.

In this show Bedford has a repertoire of images that include sailing ships being wrecked in storms, pink icebergs, dense luxuriant vegetation, migrating birds and exploding sky rockets. She seems to like to render movement with skittering brushmarks, or flying specks, and incorporating tropes that allude to her own zigzagging emotional vagaries.

Yet these beautifully made pictures suffice in themselves to hold your attention. You don’t need to know about their creator’s tortured love life, inner turmoils and possible social gaffes to enjoy them. She might live in California surrounded by the Hollywood movie industry but these paintings don’t seem to be stridently confessional or nurturing of inside gossip. In fact the images could also be symbols for our unstable times, the economic and ecological disasters causing so much global catastrophe. Whatever the case, these paintings exist in their own right as sources of pleasure, playing on smeary streaky oil paint, sensitively ‘dangled’ ink lines and thin scumbled over washes.

The Starkwhite exhibition is particularly interesting because of the shipwreck theme being placed over loud poppy colours that seem to introduce an element of irony. The historical imagery is deliriously incongruous here, not being about contemporary consumerism as perhaps you might expect, and rarely with brooding background ambiences. Even the grey paintings are silvery and not ominous. It’s an enigmatic and likeable show exulting in demonstrations of manual skill, mixed with cleverly loaded, ambiguous subject matter.

John Hurrell

Print | Facebook | Twitter | Email

 

Recent Posts by John Hurrell

JH
Jae Hoon Lee, Mother and Child, 2024, inkjet on smooth pearl. 1500 x 1500 mm

Looking Through (or At) Jae Hoon Lee

IVAN ANTHONY GALLERY

Auckland

 

Jae Hoon Lee
Internal Landscape Part II


16 March 2024 -13 April 2024

JH
Outside installation of part of Shiraz Sadikeen's The Natural Rate, at Treadler. Photo: Alex North.

Sadikeen @ Treadler

TREADLER

Auckland


Shiraz Sadikeen
The Natural Rate


8 March 2024 - 23 March 2024

 

JH
Still from Marcus Coates, The Directors: Lucy (2022) Single channel HD video on loop, projection, 21 min, 24 sec--⁠presented at Yellow Brick Road, courtesy of Artangel.

Attempting to Describe the Experience of Psychosis

Te Tuhi /Auckland Arts Festival

5 inner city sites


Marcus Coates
The Directors


24 February - 24 March 2024

JH
Ava Seymour, Manhole, 2023, Maribu solvent screen-printing ink on aluminium, 1120 x 910 mm, unique.

Maternal Appurtenances

COASTAL SIGNS

Auckland

 

Ava Seymour
Heels of Mothers


14 March - 13 April 2024