Alison Mills: Northern Light

5th October – 3rd November 2007

Alison Mills paints the archetypal ‘picturesque’ landscape. In these new paintings, the semi-imagined snowy winter scenes of her previous exhibition have been replaced by a new truthfulness and a sense of the deeper commitment that comes from an intimate relationship with her new rural surroundings. As in previous work the image is informed by elements of chance and spontaneity created during the painting process. The new works are governed by painterly 'accidents' with an emphasis on the physicality of the paint and the direct role that it plays in the painting’s construction; impasto is juxtaposed against thinner washes which are then erased, scoured and flecked.

This constant working and re-working of the painting's surface creates the visual impression of erosion that echo the elemental forces that scour the North of England landscapes. In this way, the inherent beauty of the images work in parallel with this sense of attrition and decay, where the seemingly ideal is awash with sinister undercurrents. Whether the central motif is a swan or solitary tree, it vibrates with an eerie romanticism. A heightened colour palette emphasises the dualities in the work that are at once seductive yet surreal and other-worldly.

Influenced by the Northern European Landscape tradition it is difficult to think of another painter so self-consciously utilizing this traditional genre of the ‘idealised’ vision while paradoxically imbuing the subject with a contemporary sensibility. Her vigorous and experimental use of paint elevates mere representation to a narrative centred around history, memory and the post modern Sublime.