Contemporary Landscape Artist to Host Opening of New Behind Closed Doors Informality Exhibition

Informality art gallery on Market Place is delighted to present ‘Behind Closed Doors’, a solo presentation of recent paintings by Swiss artist Diane Chappalley who will be at the opening this Saturday (15 February) between 2.00-4.00pm.

Can you paint a sunflower? Or rather, can you paint a sunflower after Van Gogh? For Chappalley, a sunflower can be imagined, autobiographical and art historical all at once. They appear in her paintings from time to time – singular or in clusters – bloated and sun-drunk with drooping heads.

Diane is a painter whose work depicts imagined fantasies. The sceneries in her work are rooted in reality and reflect her personal history. Translations of sensory experiences and suspended momentums of the minutiae are visual responses in which remove the viewer from the everyday monotony.

The title Behind Closed Doors implies a more private, domestic space – somewhere perhaps unknowable to the viewer. On closer inspection, these paintings cannot easily be described as landscapes in a traditional sense – they are often dense and feverish; misleading the eye. Using complementary colour to evoke shape and space, Chappalley builds up a surface of course, dry paint – the rough surface of the flax linen providing staunch resistance to the brush. Smaller works are painted directly onto gingham linen, giving a feeling of nostalgia. This peculiar blending of place and time – weeds from fecund canal verges in Walthamstow, hardy Edelweiss plants that grow up the sides of the Swiss mountains, and the pastoral landscapes of Les Nabis – is a process of distillation, a private conversation that happens alone in the studio of which something remains hidden.

The exhibition runs until 1st April 2020.

For more details go to https://informality.co