andrew hardwick 'evanescent earth

ANDREW HARDWICK

EVANESCENT EARTH

Just under the surface I shall be, all together at first, then separate and drift, through all the earth and perhaps in the end through a cliff into the sea, something of me.

Samuel Beckett

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Introduction

This is Andrew Hardwick’s first exhibition at Millennium.

As I write this introduction, A landmark retrospective of

Peter Lanyon is being held at Tate, St Ives. As one would

expect, a visit to this exhibition is a testament to the power

of land and sea, but more specifically to Lanyon’s sense of

place, his entwinement within that place. The suggestion of

the skeleton fused with the granite underfoot.

Andrew Hardwick is, of course, a very different painter,

but we can observe similarities. Certainly in a rawness of

approach, but Hardwick’s paintings are also born from

an intimate relationship with location. This relationship

is extracted in part from Hardwick’s farming heritage.

Their farm adjoined the Bristol Channel and included a

large acreage of tidal salt marshes. We see the dramatic

shift in this landscape but also his personal history, for

example in the painting ‘Ditches, Docks and Storage Car

Park’ where the landscape of his childhood lurks beneath a

car park where once the family sheep roamed, a place where

the new world has superseded the archaic and we see the

transition. In contrast, in the paintings ‘Estuary, Saltings, Sheep

and Aeroplane’ and ‘Ogmore Coast’ the ghosts of crashed

war aeroplanes become submerged by the terrain which

surrounds them. The violent impact of what was then the

modern world, now disintegrates and becomes entombed.

This rapid transcients is also supported in the painting ‘Sand

Bay’ where toy soldiers squirm in the soil of Hardwick’s

childhood playground. The site had earlier been the location

of an army camp and gun placement during the war.

All is fleeting, as the passing of time and geology of the

earth seem to swallow up all that temporarily sit upon it -

adding mass. Adding further delicate layers of history.

Where nostalgia is rendered with the use of toys, the

application feels authentic. The intimation is emotive,

suggesting triviality when compared to the heavy rendering

of soil and stone. These trinkets - these memories, like all

matter, become buried with the passing of time. Personally

and universally - our own childhoods become lost.

It often seems that the pursuit of many landscape

artists is to compete with beauty of the natural world; this

objective sets up a competition with the muse, wrangling

with its evocation of the majestic. Hardwick’s often large,

cinematic panel paintings subvert these notions - the ego

belongs to nature and we are reassuringly reminded of it.

The beauty proffered is not conventional, or judgmental.

These paintings are honest and unsentimental.

Hardwick’s raw surfaces appear almost attacked, with

violent indiscriminate fervour - there is little concession

towards fussiness or prettying. These are paintings that revel

in material. Where paint, matter, earth and pigment, often

from the direct source of the inspiration of a painting are

poured and built in to a surface. They appear heavy but

also fragile. That which appears delicate makes a consent

to much considered ecological fragility. But the weight and

the mass somehow reverts the balance in the argument,

placing emphasis of the momentous power of the earth

over us - a sanguine notion. We become just another fragile

geological layer. Reminding us of our own loss of intimacy

with our surroundings and in part our stain upon it - the

inconsequence of our contemporary concerns. This is where

I feel that their optimism lies; in that they confront our ego,

by reminding us that some things are much bigger than us.

Perhaps some things are more enduring.

Joseph Clarke

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Cliffs, Estuary and Tractor

oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes and other collage material on panels

174 x 316 cm

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Sand Bay

oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes and other collage

material on panels

174 x 316 cm

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Ogmore Coast

oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, roofing felt and other collage material on panels

171 x 342 cm

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Bay, Estuary, Milky Grey Day

oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes and other collage

material on panels

174 x 316 cm

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Estuary, Red Sun and Football

oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, football and other collage material on panels

186 x 342 cm

15

Dark Sky and Sea

oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, wax, roofing felt

and other collage material on panels

174 x 316 cm

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Stormy Day, Dark Blue Sea and Caravans

oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, and other collage material on panels

174 x 316 cm

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Estuary, Sheep, Dull Day and the M4 Motorway

oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes and other collage material on panels

174 x 316 cm

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Estuary, Saltings, Sheep and Aeroplane

oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, and other collage material on panel

122 x 159 cm

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Ditches , Docks and Storage Car Park


122 x 178 cm

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Oak Tree, Empty Car Pound, Docks and Cars


122 x 159 cm

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Avonmouth, Saltings and Brown Estuary


59 x 76 cm

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Autumn, Wind, Rain, Dartmoor


59 x 75 cm

Rain, Autumn Sea and Headland


93 x 97 cm

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Grey Day, North Devon and Lundy


122 x 150 cm

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Last Light, South Moor, Dartmoor


170 x 245 cm

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Cornwall, Cliffs, Moonlight and Sea


170 x 245 cm

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Rock, Sand, Mud and Sea

oil, acrylic, emulsion, pva, plaster, earth pigment, plastic, hay, ashes, and other collage material on panels

186 x 342 cm

ANDREW HARDWICK

EDUCATION

1987 - 90 Bath College of Art1992 - 95 BA (Hons) Fine Art, University of the West of England, Bristol1995 - 97 MA Fine Art, University of Wales, Cardiff, Wales

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

1991 Where the Avon meets the Severn, Sydney Place Gallery, Bath1994 Alien Landscape, Veale Wagsborough Gallery, Bristol1997 Deluge Chapter Arts Centre Cafe, Cardiff.1999 Elemental Landscapes, Michael Tippett Centre, Bath Spa University Transient Land, The Viewpoint Gallery, Plymouth College of Art, Plymouth Elemental Dynamics, Flax International Arts Centre, Belfast, Northern Ireland2000 Between Land and Water The Phoenix Gallery, Brighton2001 Earth Echoes, The London Road Gallery, Northwich, Cheshire Earth, Sea and Sky with Clement McAleer, Kirkby Gallery, Liverpool2002 Looking West, PSR, Hull 2003 Land, Sea and Sky, Thompsons Gallery, Stowe on the Wold Veiled Earth, Otter Gallery, University College Chichester, Chichester, West Sussex2004 Between Land and Tide, South Tipperary Arts Centre, Clonmel, South Tipperary, Southern Ireland2005 Fragmented Land, Folkestone Museum and Art Gallery, Folkstone, Kent Tunnel Gallery, Tonbridge2006 Forgotten Ground, Central Art Gallery, Ashton-under-Lyne, Manchester2007 Atruim Gallery, Bournmouth University2008 Estuary, Newport Museum and Art Gallery, South Wales2009 Where the Sea Meets the Estuary, Burton Art Gallery, Bideford, North Devon2010 Tidal Wilderness,Victoria Art Gallery, Bath2011 Evanescent Earth, Millennium, St Ives

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2002 Summer Exhibition, Thompsons Gallery, Stow on the Wold2003 Into the Light, Hot Bath Gallery, Bath2004 Partial View, curated by Matthew Collins, Hot Bath Gallery, Bath2006 Summer Show, Cube Gallery, Bristol2007 Autumn Show, Royal West of England Academy2010 Autumn Show, Royal West of England Academy2010 Mixed Winter Exhibition, Millennium, St. Ives2011 London Art Fair, Business Design Centre, Islington

CRITICAL REVIEWS, TELEVISION AND PRESS COVERAGE

Sarah Hughes, Visual Arts Review, Fine Time Magazine, February 1997Chapter Arts Centre Review, February 1997Evening Herald, Visual Arts Preview, 16 February 1999Phoenix Arts Review, January 2000Artscene, September 2002Yorkshire Television, Look North, Interview, 4th September 2002Partial View Catologue South Tipperary Today, 4 August 2004The Nationalist, 7 August 2004Metro, Arts Review, February 2008Devon Life, November 2009Venue Magazine, March 2010

Published by Millennium to coincide with the exhibition ‘Evanescent Ear th’ by Andrew Hardwick

All rights reserved. No par t of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publishers

Photography or works and ar tist por traits by Nik Strangelove (www.studiostrangelove.com)

Printed by Active Colour (www.activecolour.co.uk)

ISBN 978-1-905772-40-7

S t r e e t - a n - P o lS t . I v e s C o r n w a l l0 1 7 3 6 7 9 3 1 2 1m a i l @ m i l l e n n i u m g a l l e r y. c o . u kw w w . m i l l e n n i u m g a l l e r y. c o . u k

M I L L E N N I U M

andrew hardwick 'evanescent earth

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