earthly epics, paradise spice

Earthly Epics, Paradise Spice

Alec Cumming

3rd July – 14th August 2013

Earthly Epics, Paradise Spice

Alec Cumming

the returning show featuring paintings from

Cumming’s time in India

Exhibition 3rd July – 14th August 2013

Art 18/21, Augustine Steward House, 14 Tombland,Norwich, Norfolk, Nr3 1HF

www.art1821.com

Earthly Epics, Paradise Spice

Alec Cumming is agitated. Not because his Indian Visa has expired and so he has to return to the UK, leaving behind New Delhi in India, the place that has been his home for the past two years, but because this means a disruption to his painting and the flow of his current work. 'A true painter doesn't paint for his contemporaries or for posterity. He paints solely for himself because he has to'. Telling words, stated by the Indian Artist F N Souza. In this respect, Cumming is a true painter.

The past two years have been bitter sweet for the young artist. There have been the bright lights of one of the worlds largest cities knocking on the door of his Delhi studio offering everything an artist could dream of nudged up against the magnitude of his move, situating himself, and more importantly, his practice, in a very different artworld where his work is unfamiliar and even alien to both his contemporaries and his audiences. Adam Pushkin, head of the Arts for the British Council in India, succinctly summed-up Cumming’s approach to this upheaval. In his introduction to the artist’s first solo show in Delhi, at the British Council in 2012, Pushkin explains, ‘It’s one thing to have an institution create an opportunity, as Art 18/21 has done for Alec: its quite another to seize it, embrace it, and use that opportunity as the inspiration for new creativity and beauty, as Alec has done for himself through these works created right here in Delhi’.

Cumming it would appear is as International in his living arrangements as he is in his new work which has once again moved around the corner and now incorporates not just a new colour palette but images infused with Indian influences; references to Indian Miniature paintings and Modern artists such as K G Subramanyan and F N Souza are intermingled with the sights of one privileged to both the inner and outside worlds of Delhi.

Cumming’s work We sail tonight for Singapore beautifully demonstrates the new paintings. Whilst beauty can be a loaded word to attach to a painting in this case it works well as the artist teases us with layers of translucent colour mimicking the constant flirtatious flicks of gauze-like sari fabrics that can be seen at every turn. These works are more figurative, the cold pinks of the flesh coloured forms moving to blue and in the image there is far more of a sense of a definite space. We see decoration; the beads of a curtain, the embellishment of the edges of a carpet or piece of architecture. However these works use decoration without being decorative.

For all its domesticity there is a sense of playful bullying by something in the room as the large figure like forms could jump out and bite at any moment; large smiling shapes suggestive of teeth or the keys on a piano grin suggestively at the viewer. This is beguiling but as long as you sit back to look.

Cumming also plays with traditional composition with the large forms at the front rather than the back of the paintings and the viewer is given the sense that they are about to be shown something that perhaps they shouldn’t see. The beauty in this is the naughtiness enhanced by the sweetness of the confectionary like colours, delicious but likely to pull your fillings out. The new translucency has come about through a change in his techniques. In previous paintings colour was mixed in old coffee cups, swirling masses of colour and applied with a heavily laden brush. But recently Cumming has been using a palette, mixing the colour on the board with the final application altogether lighter of touch.

Back in Norwichfor the next few months Cumming will be working from a studio in central Norwichmaking work for the India Art Fair and his forth coming solo show in Delhiin 2014. In August this year Cumming will be exhibiting with the Indigo Blue Gallery in Singapore, Art and Aesthetic in Delhiand we can look forward to seeing his British Council show To Wander to Lust at the NUA Gallery in December 2013.

Laura Williams

Art 18/21

Catalouge Of Works

Precious Gems198 x 183 cmOil on Canvas2013

In the Garden You And I46 x 36 cmOil on Canvas2013

Everything On You55 x 55 cmWatercolour on paper2013

Little Tigeress36 x 46 cmOil on Canvas2013

All Over You30 x 25 cmOil on Canvas2013

Circus Day50 x 46 cmOil on Canvas2013

Forms From Another Day50 x 46 cmOil on Canvas2013

Off The Edge50 x 46 cmOil on Canvas2013

A Funny Little Situation25 x 30 cmOil on Canvas2013

In That Home From Home43 x 50 cmOil on Canvas2013

And Then You Appeared50 x 46 cmOil on Canvas2013

In The Night46 x 36 cmOil on Canvas2013

Once It All Starts50 x 46 cmOil on Canvas2013

Passing Those Things Again30 x 25 cmOil on Canvas2013

Pleasure things132 x 122 cmOil on Canvas2013

Stepping Out132 x 122 cmOil on Canvas2013

Playful Gems36 x 46 cmOil on Canvas2013

A Small Scene19 x 14 cmOil on Canvas2013

Your Own Space 30 x 25 cmOil on Canvas2013

So Lucious19 x 14 cmOil on Canvas2013

Spinning Around102 x 102 cmOil on Canvas2013

Tales Told55 x 55 cmOil on Canvas2013

That Time It Was Mine25 x 30 cmOil on Canvas2013

The Time Is Now50 x 46 cmOil on Canvas2013

Those Little Things19 x 14 cmOil on Canvas2013

Through The Streets In The Heat55 x 55 cmOil on Canvas2013

Through The Night25 x 30 cmOil on Canvas2013

When You Came19 x 14 cmOil on Canvas2013

When I Am Home55 x 55 cmWatercolour On Paper2013

Wrestle Around19 x 14 cmOil on Canvas2013

You Got Me46 x 36 cmOil on Canvas2013

BIOGRAPHYBorn in the UK in 1986, Alec Cumming was raised on the Norfolk/Suffolk border with a garden that opened onto the gently undulating countryside.

Cumming Studied at Norwich City College where he took a Diploma in Fine Art followed by a BA (hons) in Fine Art from Norwich School of Art and Design (2004 - 2007). Always actively involved, following two years as Student Union President at Norwich School of Art and Design, Cumming was a founding member of STEW artist studios in Norwich.

Back in Norwich for the next few months Cumming will be working from a studio in central Norwich making work for the India Art Fair and his forth coming solo show in Delhi in 2014. In August this year Cumming will be exhibiting with the Indigo Blue Gallery in Singapore, Art and Aesthetic in Delhi and we can look forward to seeing his British Council show To Wander to Lust at the NUA Gallery in December 2013.

Selected Exhibitions

?

?July 2013, 'Earthly Epics, Paradise Spice', Art 18/21, Norwich, England, Solo Exhibitionth

?January 2013, 5 India Art Fair, New Delh, India?September 2012, 'To Wander, to Lust', The Queens Gallery, British Council, New Delhi,

India, Solo Exhibition?July 2012, Norfolk Contemporary Art Society, NCA 12, The Forum, Norwich, England,

Group Show?February 2012, West: East, Exhibition with Mathew Lanyon, Art 18/21, Norwich,

England, Group Show?February 2012, Val Baroda, MS University Gallery, Baroda, Gujarat, India, Group Show

th?January 2012, 4 India Art Fair, New Delhi, India ?September 2011, A language of its Own, Alan Wheatley Art, 22 Masons Yard, Duke

Street, St James, London, England, Solo Exhibition?July 2011, Salthouse 11, 'Ad limina', Salthouse, North Norfolk, England, Group Show?March 2011, Inspirations, Jarrolds, St James Mill, Norwich England, Group Show

rd?January 2011, 3 India Art Summit 2011, New Delhi, India ?December 2010, New Paintings, ICA Gallery, Jaipur, India, Group Show?October 2010, The Touch of Paint, Maggi Hambling, Tory Lawrence, Chris Newson, Alec

Cumming, Art 18/21 Gallery, Norwich, England, Group Show?June 2010, Forms that Flow, Alan Wheatley Art, 22 Masons Yard, Duke Street St

James's, London, England, Solo Exhibition

Work held in private and corporate collections in, Australia, Egypt, France, Hong Kong, India, Israel, UK and the United States.

Alec CummingEarthly Epics Paradise Spice3rd - 14th August 2013

All Enquiries:

Laura Williams Art 18/21Augustine Steward House14 TomblandNorwichNorfolkEnglandNr3 1HF

+441603763345+44 7879673419

laura@art1821.com