Threshold
Wednesday 31st March - Thursday 15th April
Threshold sees four artists, Anton Brink, Brad Gray, Anthony Scullion and Peter van Straten, use distortion, fantasy, surrealism and satire (amongst other devices) to investigate the realm between sanity and insanity, dreams and reality, violence and innocence. Despite distinct differences in their technical and philosophical approach to painting, all four find kinship in manifesting images that appear hallucinatory or dream-like and yet somehow reflect a tangible emotional and psychologically reality.
ANTON BRINK
“I am inspired to make art by everything I see and hear and think and feel. It is a passion. It is essential for me to express myself with things I make with my hands. This is how I give vent to my frustrations, my anger, my joy. For me, art speaks to the beyond, to the ineffable. We need art that opens the inner vision to see forwards, as well as the stuff that rubs our noses in the everyday and the material world.”Brink qualified with a PhD in Digital Image Processing from Wits University but decided to follow his passion instead of his logic, having his first exhibition in 1995.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS:
2010 ‘Threshold’, group exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town
2009 ‘Sex, Power & Money’, group exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town
2009 ‘City’, group exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town
2007 ‘Fragile’, solo exhibition, Green Gallery, Grahamstown
2006 ‘Dogma’, solo exhibition, Everard Read Cape Town
2002 ‘pARTS’, solo exhibition, Cité Internationale des Artes, Paris
2000 ‘Anima’, solo exhibition, Cuyler Street Gallery, Port Elizabeth
1999 ‘Emergence’, group exhibition, Albany Museum, Grahamstown
ANTHONY SCULLION
Anthony Scullion was born in Glasgow in 1950. He graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1992 and immigrated to South Africa in 2008.Although his paintings are ostensibly figure pieces, Scullion attempts to capture much more than the literal: the emotions and workings of the soul. Scullion has studied the chiaroscuro of Rembrandt, the spirituality of Giacometti and the distortions of Francis Bacon, to create his own thoughtful approach to the human body. Scullion’s figures are most often a single head or figure, seemingly unfinished, against a hazy background. They have been described as ´soulscapes´. The sketchiness of the figure conceals layers of paint, indicating that the motif has been revisited many times, enriching the canvas surface. In this manner, Scullion explores the beauties of human flesh & human soul.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS:
2010 ‘Threshold’, group exhibition, Everard Read Cape Town
2009 ‘Sex, Power & Money’, group exhibition, Everard Read Cape Town
2006 Flying Colours Gallery, London
2004 Flying Colours Gallery, London Group Exhibitions (South Africa)
2002 Flying Colours Gallery, London
2001 Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition
2001 15th Anniversary Exhibitions, Flying Colours Gallery
2000-06 ArtLondon with Flying Colours Gallery
2000-06 Glasgow Art Fair with Flying Colours Gallery
2000-02 ART20001/ART2001/ART2002, London, with Flying Colours Gallery
2000-03 Fine Art & Antiques Fair, Olympia, London
2000 Flying Colours Gallery, London
BRAD GRAY
Brad Gray touched down in South Africa in 2004, having travelled the world. Born in Germany in 1971 to English parents, he has since lived in Ireland, England, Saudi Arabia, Borneo, Colorado, Sardinia and Vietnam.On leaving school in 1988, he joined the Marines for two years before enrolling at Bristol Technical College on an illustration course in 1990. In 1992 he moved down to Cornwall and studied art for two more years at the Falmouth School of Art.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS:
2010 ‘Threshold’, group exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town
2009 ‘Sex, Power, Money’, group exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town
2007 ‘Out of Bounds’, group exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town
PETER VAN STRATEN
Every person has a distinct relationship to his own life. However, certain attitude types are discernable: There’s the lucky majority, who regard their own existence as no more strange than a sunrise. There are those who feel that their presence amongst us provides evidence of the Universe’s foresight & generosity . Then of course there are those who are angered by their own existence, who would like to leave as soon as possible.And then there are those who are genuinely puzzled by their own presence on this planet. Those who – despite a perfectly adequate amount of daily happiness – cannot help feeling that they are the victims of some horrendous administrative error. And since these people are not really miserable so much as bewildered, they are faced with 80 years or so before they can return whence they came, and deal with whatever legal conflicts might arise from their case.
One such person is Peter van Straten, and he decided early that the only way to compensate for the mischievous sleight of hand that landed him in something as embarrassing as a body, would be to use that body for its greatest possible purpose: the creation of art .
Peter van Straten was born in 1972 in Johannesburg. He lives and works in Cape Town.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS:
2010 ‘Threshold’, group exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town
2009 ‘Sex, Power & Money’, group exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town
2004 ‘Ten’, group exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town
2003 ´Peter van Straten´s Intimate History of Everything´, Knysna Fine Art, Knysna
2002 ‘Buckle your Seat-belt, Dorothy .....’, Knysna Fine Art, Knysna
2001 ‘Telling Tales’ - Third I Gallery
2000 ‘Artists from The Cape’ - Old Arts Gallery, University of Pretoria
1998 Chalk Farm Gallery, London
1997 Chelsea Gallery, Wynberg
