Sam Peacock and modern landscapes
Posted on October 3, 2013
Constantly scraping forward from recollections of blurred horizons and weathered buildings, Sam Peacock brings us his Unseen Landscape. Vast urban spaces of Northern England jostle with far flung trips to Australia and Thailand, that meld into two-fold painted textures of burnt sugar and bubbled gloss paint. Contemporary landscape painting has taken on a new face.
Disturbing the idea of traditional landscape painting as an idealistic image or social commentary, we are instead presented with an abstract recognition of desolate concrete, moulding walls and heat hazes that cling. Revelling in impression rather than reality, reliving the small details that often go astray, Peacock plays with curiosity. “A long line of great colourists, expressive handlers of paint and creators of richly textured worlds” describes Peter Doig's exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery, but could equally be applied to Peacock's collection of work. Peacock's Blaxland 2, 2013 and Doig's St. Anton (Flat Lights), 1995-1996 create ghostly rock faces of cracks and ripples of paint.
Blaxland 2, Sam Peacock St.Anton (Flat Lights), Peter Doig
Similarly presenting landscapes as natural formations of layers, Peacock and Anselm Kiefer leave surfaces speckled with earthy deposits and colours lined up to evoke stretches of horizon. Natural formations take shape away from scenic settings.
Kurrangai 4, Sam Peacock The Reconciled Earth, Anselm Kiefer
A slight departure from Peacock's natural colour palette, his layers of paint, pulled and stretched across steel should be seen in context with Gerhard Richter. Neon pink resting in a slick of grey is a rainbow away from Remescrape, but the pull of forces and partial layers tells of passage of time in both artists practices.
Orescrape #11, Sam Peacock Abstraktes Bild, Gerhard Richter
Now- 19th October
Curious Duke Gallery
Free
Peter Doig: No Foreign Lands
Now- 3rd Novemember
Scottish National Gallery
Tickets £8