John Hoyland & Andy Stewart – Signature

30th March – 21st April 2007

One of the most important sensations in the visual arts is the response of the viewer to the touch of the artist - the inherent sense of personality and emotion that is left in the trace of a brush through paint or a pool of saturated colour. To construct a sophisticated visual language of intelligence and knowingness is a slow, deliberating journey, where honesty and purity are intuitively conveyed through the physical process of painting. Success is the complete fusion of the artist’s life and the painting experience. Barnett Newman observed, ‘We are in the process of making the world, to a certain extent, in our own image’.

Although Hoyland and Stewart are of different generations and each have their unique signature, they convey a thrilling vision of life that is ultimately timeless when expressed through the immediate sensual language of paint. At a time when the visual arts have become more about critique and the written word it is perhaps relevant to remind ourselves of the beauty of pure painting.

John Hoyland RA

Hoyland has been at the forefront a British abstract painting since the 1960’s. He worked in New York during the 1970’s with friends and influential artists such as Barnett Newman, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Motherwell and Mark Rothko. Clement Greenburg introduced him to Hans Hoffman whose work affected Hoyland profoundly. He has exhibited internationally including in London, New York, Munich, Milan, Montreal, Vienna and Toronto and more recently has had major retrospective exhibitions at The Royal Academy of Arts, London and The Tate Museum, St Ives. Public collections include the Arts Council of Great Britain, the Birmingham City Art Gallery, The Courtauld Institute, The Whitworth Art Gallery, the Tate Museum and The Walker Gallery, Liverpool.

Andy Stewart

Stewart is from the younger generation of British Abstract Artists and is influenced by and great friends with John Hoyland. He exhibits regularly with Sarah Myerscough Fine Art in London and international exhibitions include locations such as Vienna, New York, Toronto, Venice, Salzburg and Brussels. He lived in Vienna during the 1990’s and since has worked on many major commissions, including four paintings for the European Commissioner of Austria and most recently a fifty metre painting for a glass lift shaft in Vienna . He was selected by the Austrian government for a collaborative international touring exhibition to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. His work is currently on a world tour in an exhibition entitled ‘Symposiums’ which started at the Museum of Modern Art, Passau in 2001.