Paintings of architectural shapes and remembered places will sit alongside vivid prints of reduced motorways bridges in a joint show by Jacob de Graaf and Ian Mitchell at Duckett and Jeffreys Gallery, Malton, from May 18.
The Paint, Print & Place exhibition will bring together Jacob’s serene paintings and Ian’s hard-edged digital graphic prints from May 18 to June 18 with an official launch day on May 21.
Jacob’s Memory House series combines images of childhood memories of growing up in the Netherlands with depictions of his immediate surroundings in York, his adopted home today.
“When making sketches or taking photographs of buildings, I found I was greatly attracted to blind walls, only occasionally broken by the presence of a window,” says the Dutchman. “This closed-off quality gives it a near sculptural feel – and perhaps a reflection on the great frescos of the Early Renaissance.”
In his highly designed graphic kinescopes, gallery co-owner Ian Mitchell has reduced the utilitarian plainness of motorway bridges down to its most basic form. “Heading towards abstraction, I appropriate the language of design and branding to create bright vibrant reductive prints of familiar, yet often ignored views,” he says.
Duckett and Jeffreys has produced a publication in conjunction with the show that includes an insightful essay by Harriet Vyner, who wrote the 2001 biography Groovy Bob: The Life And Times Of Robert Fraser, the Sixties’ hedonist, taste-maker and celebrated London art dealer. She also co-authored the 2008 autobiography of pianist and presenter Jools Holland, Barefaced Lies and Boogie-Woogie Boasts.
Commenting on the Paint, Print & Place show, Harriet says: “The works present uninhabited worlds – or at least worlds whose inhabitants are momentarily absent. These are places that allow the spectator to be startled by viewing the monumental or man-made, the familiar or unknown, all without other people around to dilute the impression.”
Running alongside this exhibition in the DJ Selections room will be the gallery’s growing collection of works on paper. Viewers are invited to delve into the drawers to discover the treasures within.
Duckett and Jeffreys, in Old Maltongate, Malton, is open from 10am to 5pm, Wednesday to Saturday, and at all other times by appointment on 01377 236008.
For information, visit duckettandjeffreys.com or email mail@duckettandjeffreys.com
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