For the purposes of the next exhibition, ‘Pods, Portals & Thresholds’, Derek Sprawson imagines ‘Mrs Rick’s Cupboard’ assuming a shrine like quality; a place of pilgrimage that visitors need to seek out, a quest. He responds to the notion that the site is a portal; a magical space into which he has inserted numerous pod-like objects/paintings each functioning as an individual threshold.
The work installed within the space makes for a latent experience. This is an enclosure, an awkward refuge; it offers security yet infiltration, belonging as well as isolation. The paintings proffer a paradoxical impression of substance and transparency, vulnerability and absurdity. A waxy blend of oil paint washed or dipped - a tidemark; or the scuffed, indistinct burr of oil paint brushed straight from the tube. The ova shaped supports elicit a notion of pods often with holes to fathom.
They populate ‘Mrs Rick’s Cupboard’ with a comedic presence seemingly tangible and distinct as if they could be probed or entered. The surfaces seduce but there is an underlying ugliness in some of these objects, whilst others appear ephemeral and breezy. An unlikely display, possibly in the style of a household’s best china; an eccentric collection of curiosities framed by mute, black felt to cushion or protect these oddities. This is a portal for the senses, elusive and nascent.
Derek Sprawson is an artist based in Southwell, UK.
Recent exhibitions include : ‘Regrouping’, Workstation, Sheffield & x-church, Gainsborough (2012), ‘Erase & Rewind’, Refectory Gallery, Nottingham (2011), 'Pile’, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff (2011) and Surface Gallery, Nottingham (2010), ‘Closely Held Secrets’, Bonington Gallery, Nottingham, (2010), ’20,000 Saints’ (solo), All Saints Church, Laughton, Lincolnshire as part of the West Lindley Open Churches Festival (2010) and ‘14 installations’, Swedenborg Institute, London (2010)
