Alice Gur-Arie / Spring and Other Reasons
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The Coningsby Gallery is pleased to announce its first exhibition of emerging artist Alice Gur-Arie, on view from Tuesday, February 4th to Saturday, February 15th.
Alice Gur-Arie first appeared on the art scene eight years ago, when she was nominated for two series of Icelandic works in the Terry O’Neill Tag Photography Prize competition, Drama in the Fog, and Love on the Rocks. A year later, another work from Iceland, Tapestry, was longlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize. Drama in the Fog has not been shown since its debut at the Embassy of Iceland in London, in Alice’s solo exhibition Works from The Iceland Trilogy, and we are pleased to have it at the Coningsby Gallery.
Since then, Alice has focused on developing a distinctive creative style that combines her own photography from around the world with digital painting. Inspired by the natural world, landscape, seascape and wildlife images dominate her portfolio, ranging in style from bold saturated abstracts to soft, textured tones. This mixed media approach has garnered additional attention: The Romantic, from the series Becoming Harlequin, was long listed for The Secret Art Prize, and Heraldry, also from Becoming Harlequin, was a featured entry to the Gemini Art Prize. Becoming Harlequin can be seen in Spring and Other Reasons.
Based on the concept of “seeing”, she invites the viewer to replace the window through which they see the world, with a lens that interprets visual experience into something that is at once familiar and foreign. Treating a photograph as her canvas, images are repainted by hand digitally with a “brush”, sometimes in layers, sometimes pixel by pixel.
She explains: “Because my process uses photography as well as painting, the realm of possibility is a continuum: at one end the work can look very much like a photograph; at the other, the work can look extremely painterly - highly textured, and with visible “brushstrokes”. In the middle, where the two art forms converge, the work is a unique blend that asks the viewer to question whether what they see is a photograph or a painting. It is this “sweet spot” that I find so alluring.”
“What is critical, though,” she continues, “is understanding that my work is not about digital manipulation, but about re-imagining experience”.
And this is exactly what Spring and Other Reasons offers: the saturated, glowing lilypad leaves of Overture, the dotted Mediterranean twilight sky; the intriguing, Comedia del Arte Becoming Harlequin, and soft textures of Tapestry’s winter air… this is an exhibition for the senses, one which will appeal, as Alice says, “to the head and the heart”.
The limited edition mixed media images in Spring and Other Reasons come from Portugal, France, Italy, Israel and Germany. All works in the exhibition are available for purchase.
About Alice Gur-Arie
Alice Gur-Arie began her career as a conceptual copywriter, graphic designer, and creative director, eventually responsible for positioning global brands, and developing and executing their marketing strategies.
Alice’s artwork is held in private art collections in the UK, US, Israel, Germany, Switzerland and Canada.
Ms Gur-Arie is a Trustee of Positive View Foundation, a UK based charity that uses photography to transform the lives of disadvantaged 16-25 year olds living on inner London estates.
In addition to her practice, Alice is working on a thematically structured art book that will contain a dozen of her short stories and a selection of her contempo-rary, fine art, mixed media images.
Alice holds degrees in English literature, Education, and Business from York University in Toronto. She is a self taught artist.
To see more of Alice Gur-Arie’s mixed media works please visit:
https://www.instagram.com/alicegur_arie/
Commissions
Alice welcomes contemporary art commissions. Please feel free to contact her directly at +44 (0) 7827 331 727 or alice@alicegur-arie.com
Exhibition Weekend Opening Times
Saturday 8th February: 12 noon - 6pm Sunday 9th February: 12 noon - 4pm Saturday 22nd February: 12 noon - 4pm