The Top 6 Art Exhibitions to see in London this week

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE

Quantum Ceramics at Knight Webb Gallery mentioned in this week’s issue (11/03/17) of The Jewish Chronicle

Rufus Knight-Webb

‘Soon after I opened my gallery in 2012 I became curious about the paintings of Aboudia, an emerging artist from Ivory Coast. I was showing another emerging African artist at the time, and thought that the two of them would jointly make a wonderful exhibition.

Several years later I purchased a medium sized Aboudia painting from an influential New York art collector, Michael Hort. Through this connection I was introduced to Aboudia’s agent Issiaka Toure, and before long I was both a buyer and dealer of Aboudia’s paintings.

Last Sunday (9th October) Aboudia was painting in my London studio, completing three new pictures which had been shipped to the gallery from his New York studio partially finished. This was a great moment for me and a milestone for the gallery. I was surprised he could work with me watching, and then I remembered he was initially a street artist, and painting in front of people would be natural.

Aboudia’s work is easily identifiable with its skeletal figures sketched in oil bar over light ghostly washes of colour. The artist has cleverly brought together his origins as a street artist with an experimental curiosity for multi media and vigorous abstract painting.

(Juliane Hundertmark, Issiaka Toure, Rufus Knight-Webb, and Aboudia)

Death seems to play a recurrent role in these paintings, alongside stray animals, African street life, neon signs, traffic, and what seems to be a rather negatively portrayed UN peace keeping army. Aboudia’s homeless years, eight of them, have played a vital role in his imagination. There are also his memories of the 1999 Cote d’Ivoire military coup and its subsequent political skirmishes. Stray animals are a poignant symbol of war, homelessness and poverty.

I have a personal interest in fast improvised painting and the way it captures a fixed moment in time. Aboudia above all painters I know has captured these fleeting moments and presented them in a graphic animated style. His world of intense and troubled human activity comes to us through the innocent perception of a self taught artist.

Moderna Museet in Stockholm have agreed to purchase the painting ‘Light Green Spring’ 2013 by Anders Knutsson.

This large monochrome painting was shown by Knight Webb Gallery at Context Art Fair New York in May this year (see image below). The same work was also shown at The Agueli Museum in Sweden throughout August.

In addition to ‘Light Green Spring’ the collection at the Moderna Museet includes Knutsson’s ‘Long Red Painting’, from 1979 and ‘Midnight Earthshine #16’ 1979. This gives the artist a substantial presence in the permanent collection of Sweden’s most prestigious museum of art.

Words & pictures by Rufus Knight-Webb

Returning to London, following a rainbow to the north. I stopped at Watts memorial chapel in Surrey, a truly romantic Fin de Siecle, Art Nouveau building. Built as a shrine to the Victorian artist George Frederick Watts and designed by his wife Mary a brilliant designer, creator of ceramics and portrait painter. Always a magical spot, I have stopped here many times over the past 30 years, often when the evening light is inviting. On this journey a vivid rainbow appeared as I drove over the Hogs Back and drew me off course toward Compton and Watts Chapel.

The chapel with its arrangement of trees, headstones, mausoleum and curved cobbled paths is an expression of deep love or deep friendship. Perhaps only love could have inspired a memorial with such a romantic vision as this sculptural landscape of the afterlife. In this sense the chapel is a miniature Taj Mahal. Many of the graves are beautifully designed in bas relief ceramic form by Mary, and I wondered whether the graves inhabitants could actually afford these elaborate headstones, or whether they were subsidised in order to complete Mary’s vision. Aldous Huxley is buried here under quite a plain 1960’s grave, along with his final injection of LSD (an intriguing deathbed request, administered by his wife).