2016 Archive

(Romanian artist AurelTar’s ”Wonderful Collapse” an allegorical painting on four panels evoking the great civilisation of Greek European antiquity now facing financial collapse.)

I AM (NOT) MAKING THIS UP

by Martin Greenland

Wednesday 2 - Friday 25 November 2016 (Open 1pm - 5pm -Wed - Fri)

Martin Greenland won the John Moores Painting Prize in 2006 with his painting ‘Before Vermeer's Clouds’ and for most of the past thirty years those who know his work will have seen a predominance for landscape. Within this work, elements, themes and motifs have come and gone and recent paintings have become purer as landscapes, this being the biggest joy for him; to purely invent landscape, as this is what these works are; complete, improvised inventions, even if these pictured places are sometimes rooted in real places. He uses all his skills as a painter and what he knows and can remember so the viewer is absolutely convinced of the landscape's reality.

In recent times he has often made paintings in a way which can be described as the mirror opposite of the landscapes; that is, completely and directly scrutinised still lifes. He has long been convinced that new life can be brought to this, for many, stale genre. Martin is tired of the laziness, the cliché, the lack of meaning which so much still life has so his new work brings something a little different; irony, a sense of humour, a dedication to tradition but also a shaking up of that tradition and most important, inscrutable painterly accuracy.

Current International Artist Exhibition

Ernesto Muñiz

Of Angels & Demons

Fri 26 August - Fri 23 September 2016

'Read Art in Liverpool Review'

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Ernesto Muniz who is represented by the Corke Gallery in the UK arrived in Liverpool in July 2016 and created a collection of new collages for the current exhibition.

He has now left and gone off to Madrid where he has another show opening in October 2016 followe by another show in Italy in November 2016 before returning to Mexico City where he is based.

As part of its commitment to forging links with international artists the Corke Gallery has sponsored Ernesto and brought him to the UK. Ernesto has previously shown at the Corke Gallery in 2010 and 2012 and has recently had exhibitions in San Jose in the USA and Mexico City.

Previous Exhibition

This exhibition brings together three painters who featured in the 2014 John Moores Painting Prize Exhibition.

Mandy Payne, a prize winner in 2014 was selected again to feature in the 2016 JMP Exhibition. Her painting ‘No Ball Games Here’, of Spring Hill in Sheffield, is on the poster promoting the current JMP Exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery.

Each artist in the Corke Gallery Exhibition makes use of ubiquitous and often found materials of their post-industrial urban landscape – concrete, aerosol paints, rubbish, cigarette packets, crisp packets, paper advertising – as substrate or media, source material or reference.

(Oil on canvas)

The inherent picturesqueness (roughness and irregularity) of the abandoned, derelict and the unplanned space is a virtuous subject matter, now politically as well as aesthetically, for the artist.

(Oil on canvas)

So rather than go hunting for these already ‘turned over’ sites he make his own: low-tech follies of his imagination and experiences mixed with references to historic and contemporary English landscape ideologies, design and use constructed to achieve a certain verisimilitude when viewed through the camera lens.

(Oil on canvas)

The photographic print becomes the point of origin, the subject matter, for the day to day exigencies and tussle of painting.

Mandy Payne

(Spray paint and oil on concrete)

Mandy is interested in marginal spaces, places that are often maligned and thought to be devoid of traditional aesthetic beauty. For past 3 years she has been exploring Park Hill in Sheffield, the Grade II* listed council estate and one of Britain’s largest examples of Brutalist architecture.

(Spray paint and oil on concrete)

Park Hill is currently undergoing regeneration and as such is an interesting place to observe. Part of the estate has undergone transformation into shiny, luxury flats whilst half remains boarded up and derelict.

(Spray paint and oil on concrete)

Spending time at Park Hill reinforced to her that concrete is the unifying link throughout the site. With this in mind she has been working with materials that are integral to the estate itself, namely concrete (which she has mixed both into the paint and as a substrate) and aerosol spray paint (referencing the graffiti).

Download Utopia Deferred Leaflet

'Variations'

3 - 24 June 2016

Previous Exhibition

John Pickles

2016 Collecton of Watercolours

Wed 11 - Thur 26 May 2016

****New Paintings Just Released****

The Corke Gallery is delighted to be showing the new collection of 25 watercolours painted especially for this exhibition by landscape artist John Pickles who has shown twice previously at the gallery - last time was in 2014.

Views from Italy include villages and landscapes in Tuscany and Umbria and canals and buildings in Venice, ruins on Paxos in Greece, coastal and river scenes in the UK and an interior painting of the Metropolitan cathedral in Liverpool make up the exhibition if watercolours.

If you would like to receive a copy of the show catalogue please email me.

(click to enlarge images)

At the direction of the Communist Party, to which they were both committed, John and Veronica moved to Liverpool in January 1962, setting up home in Ampthill Road, Aigburth. It became a centre of political education for many, a venue for meetings, a place to stay for visitors from across the globe, and a family home for them and their four children.

Their collection of original art and prints reflects their range of interests, including politics and the working class, the USSR and other socialist countries, and Liverpool itself. Their left-wing associations meant encounters with a wide range of local artists such as Arthur Dooley and Brian Burgess, from whom they purchased items in the early days when money was short.

In addition, Veronica's passion for the city in which she was born, and from which she was evacuated in 1939, led to a number of acquisitions related to Liverpool. John and Veronica were married in

Chester in 1954. John died in 2003, and Veronica in late 2015.

The exhibition includes original paintings by Brian Burgess, Fred Wilde, Frank Hendry, T Weddel, E Scott Jones, East European lino and wood cut prints, signed prints of Liverpool scenes by

Doug Kewley and Peter Shaw and a diverse collection of other works by East European and other local artists.

A historical highlight in the show is the painting of the Russian freighter SS YUZHNY BUG berthed in the Old Dock in Garston, painted in January 1972 by the ships electrician Nikolai and presented to the Gibson prior to its departure. The ship had been caught up in a Garston Dockers dispute for two months and the crew were unable to leave so the Gibson's helped them obtain some useful 'extra's to help pass the time like a TV, a Christmas tree and plenty of alcohol - needless to say there was a memorable Christmas and New Year party aboard ship in 1971 in Garston Docks.

(click to enlarge images)

The show also includes rare posters from the USSR and a number of official portraits of leading Communist figures including one of Lenin which was hung on the wall of the Captain’s Cabin in the film 'Letter to Brezhnev' when it was filmed in Liverpool.

(click to enlarge images)

Entry to the exhibition is free most of the work on show is available to purchase.

The show is open from 1– 5pm, Wed–Fri from 23 – 31 March 2016 and from 13–29 April 2016.

Imagined Landscapes

by Martin Greenland

January 13 - March 2016

We currently have on show nine oil paintings by Martin Greenland Winner of the

2006 John Moores Painting Prize,