Tannery Arts London, new studio works

New paintings and ceramics made at my London studio as of late...

Available works from this series at Seed Gallery here: https://www.seedgallery.co.nz/collections/annie-sandano-1

Studio, Tannery Arts, London.

I made a lot of new work over this summer in London. It’s been a period of intense productivity, new ideas, experimentation and learning new techniques. It has also been invaluable to have the space and time to establish new lines of thought and extend my practice into new and exciting directions which keep me curious and excited about what I do every day.

Top row, left to right: New ceramic collection made at Turning Earth studio and available at Thrown Gallery in London; "Hockney's Pool" original acrylic, spray paint, oil stick and mixed media in custom tray frame, private collection, New Zealand.

Bottom row, left to right: Studio at Tannery Arts in London; "Confetti 5", private collection, London.

Being in a place that is so full of stimulation and where you can connect with so many diverse ways of doing and thinking has been a truly formative time for me professional as well as personally.

I have established a new visual language which has unfolded into a suite of over 20 new paintings where I explore the materiality of the pieces and the way they capture the sensations of being in an urban space. Nervous energy, lurid colours, contrasting textures and the use of materials found through the city landscape have informed the work. A nod to the ideas originally explored by Piet Mondrian – a kind of loose contemporary neoplasticism in some works, the use of colour fields and grids, and establishing strange but somewhat visually satisfying organisational rules.

Ceramic works and object paintings, Tannery Arts, London.

The physicality of paintings was key, the materials used in their construction, how they were assembled and stretched were a focus. The frames were all included in the work, not as a finishing enhancement, but as an actual compositional element. The paintings were intended to be experienced not only visually but as a three-dimensional object.

While making this series of new paintings I was also working on a new works in ceramics. Some of the processes and materials which were being applied to the paintings spilled over into the clay pieces and there was a strong hybridisation of textures and processes. I wanted to extend the painting into the ceramics and mesh the two.

An edit of the works made, in clay and canvas, will be shown at Solander Gallery in Wellington in early 2020, more information to follow…