A new day means both a clean slate and the carrying on of time. Sometimes all it takes is a new day for an idea to suddenly come together, or a problem to finally work itself out. That crystal feeling of waking up with newfound clarity feels like magic.. though is perhaps more like a learning from yesterday.. and the subconscious fixing puzzles whilst we sleep.
This month’s picks stem from this coming into clarity, the moving towards lucidity that coalesces in its own time. We’re also feeling (somewhat) older and wiser, now that of May 4th, NewBloodArt will be celebrating 17 years of existence and the drawing of attention to incredible emerging artists. We’ve always been about clear vision – promoting the creativity of young artists, whilst allowing buyers to make sense of their own tastes, musings, and imaginative possibilities. In mysterious ways, these current picks connect to moments of clarity, wisdom, and transparency – whether it’s in the glassy application of paint, hyper-real depictions, or metaphorical ‘wading through water’ of a scene..
Take ‘Tokyo Swim’ by Lily Senner. The use of candy colours and bold marker pens makes for a statement piece that uses its materials with flair, depicting a pool where we can see the bottom… to jump into the work would be a sure-fire road to fun. Yasmin Davidson’s ‘Views to rise and shine festival’, similarly makes a shining scene known through assured marks in verdant, day-glow colouring. Peter Kettle’s ‘Odyssey’ represents its title, a journey of sorts, each emerging colour and texture an earthily stoic rumination on life.
The assuredness to reflect also pops up in the less abstract pieces – take Phoebe Hardwick’s incredibly tender drawing ‘Before I knew you’. As if titled by the subject herself with some newfound knowledge, the sitter is depicted isolated from a meal-table gathering, pensive, as if a different person before presumably someone went and changed her life.. Sean Winn’s more confrontive ‘Do You Even Love Me?’, shows a figure coming out the shadows, with a question, with passion, and maybe a plan.
As David OM’s piece ‘Painting Is Infinite’ reveals, art is always coming to infinite moments of clarity. Darkness pervades and cascades, but as in OM’s skyscape, moments of light are there for the taking.
