Poussin Gallery is primarily concerned with the furtherance and
promotion of abstract visual art, of a kind which demonstrates an understanding
of its links to art history, without resort to nostalgia or mannerism. Our
specialism is in British abstract painting from the Seventies, but we exhibit
work from the Sixties onwards to the present day, including new work by artists
seeking to extend the disciplines of abstract painting and sculpture.
Modernism and abstraction have given rise to paintings and sculptures
of great and grand simplicity, the best of which may nevertheless be thought of
as continuing to embody the same complex structural realities of the physical
world that we recognise in the great works of figurative art. Indeed, in order
for abstract art to fully convince us of the ‘reality’ of its form, we may need
to be subtly and unconsciously persuaded that it goes about its business by the
same principles that we instinctively understand to pertain to the real world.
To many people, abstraction denotes a pared-down geometry, or some kind of
idealised absolutism. But what if the forms and relationships that the artist
wants to pursue are more complicated and imaginative than that, even though
abstract? They must at least be partially created before they can be conceived -
somehow conjured out of the medium itself before any conscious recognition by
the artist. This engagement with material simultaneously with, or even instead
of, the formation of ideas, continues to be central to the methodology of
abstraction. Lucid and simple abstract art can result from a protracted
involvement with the complex issues of the artist’s chosen materials, under the
sway of an intense imaginative effort. Such an engagement can achieve simplicity
by the robustness of its form and the deftness with which our attentions are
focused.
Abstract painting and sculpture at this moment in time can not
only be as simple or as complex as the imperative of the individual artist‘s
sensibility demands, but are also able to pursue total formal and spatial
freedom of expression. Paintings and sculptures which are impassioned by urgent
and real formal and spatial values (but not a desiccated formalism!) have
connections with and are comparable to all other such works. Making these
comparisons is crucial to seeing art more objectively, but it also helps to open
up new imaginative territory for ourselves. Making and looking at abstract art
are neither disengaged nor esoteric activities; they connect us more securely
with the real world.
Website & source : http://www.poussin-gallery.com/index.php
