I have to ‘fess up that I wasn’t familiar with the work of Rebecca Salter, which is a bit rubbish seeing as this is her fourth exhibition at long established K-Town gallery, the Beardsmore.
But what a welcome discovery. Stepping into the Beardsmore is an oasis of calm amidst the hustle and bustle of Prince Of Wales Road, and Rebecca Salter’s works on paper and canvas in ‘Beyond’ offer the viewer an even greater sense of quiet and stillness.
Her work is abstract, beautiful and ethereal, pigment on hung paper reminiscent of fine slices of marble. Pleasing and comforting, yet at the same time eerie. Looking closely at her works my eyes found movement and images: moonlit trees in a misty forest, waterfalls and reflections of faces, hundreds of tiny marks like delicate lace painstakingly drawn by hand with a dip pen.
Her works are not paintings in the traditional sense, her techniques detailed and deliberate, layering tissue paper over and over, endless scraping off layers and layers of pigment. She sets herself no limits or boundaries and there are no restrictions, often leaving a pigment wash overnight to see what results have appeared by morning. Her work is fluid, allowing the viewer to interpret it as they see it. I found the longer I looked at a piece the more limitless it seemed, with more depth and intensity.
Coincidentally I’d recently been reading about Wabi Sabi, an ancient Japanese tradition. It’s about simplifying life, finding beauty in imperfection and the things you already have: recycling, decluttering, the kind of stuff you think about when there seems to be no end to this dreary winter.
Well, anyway, Rebecca Salter herself spent time in Kyoto, Japan during the early 1980s, initially to study ceramics, and her work seems to draw upon the philosophies and aesthetics of these traditions – the notion that nothing lasts, nothing is finished, nothing is perfect. In ‘Shibui’, another ancient Japanese aesthetic term, objects are seen as simple with a hidden complexity, the contrasts refined and quiet. And in Rebecca’s work there are hidden complexities. In some of her pieces the delicate hues and neutral tones hide a vivid base colour, upon which countless layers have been added. Or as the artist herself says, drift past “the complexities of the surface to inhabit the relative tranquility of luminal space…beyond”.
So go see this exhibition, not just because this world-renowned artist continues to choose Kentish Town over Cork Street, but to lose yourself in an exquisite tranquility.
Words: Nikki Verdon
