NYAB Event - "Across the Pond: Recent Artwork by Angela A’Court & Sarah Picon" Exhibition

"Across the Pond: Recent Artwork by Angela A’Court & Sarah Picon" Exhibition

Susan Eley Fine Art

This event has ended.

In the summer of 2008, I was visiting a friend in the south of France and came across an exhibition of paintings by Franco-‐British artist Sarah Picon. Painting after painting amazed me. Each work was a mini-‐paradigm of 20th century European Modernism—the style of Picasso, Matisse, Braque and Vuillard—but painted through the lens of a 21st-‐century artist. Here was brilliant art that acknowledged historical precedent, without copying or appropriating. I purchased a painting (Les Trois Soeurs, as I have three daughters and am partial to art that depicts trios of girls).

Since that trip, I have followed Sarah’s work and corresponded with her dealer Martine Garcin. Together, we decided to bring Sarah’s work to the US for the first time, after 15 years of successful shows in France. It has been a delight to choose the paintings for “Across the Pond,”—a mix of figures, still lifes and landscapes. Sarah’s depictions of women, some glimpsed from behind with tilted heads and curved shoulders, are as appealing as her luscious pears on a table, or vases overflowing with flowers. Sarah shows us that there is wondrous beauty in the seemingly ordinary.

An art enthusiast and friend Suzanne Schaaff introduced me to Angela A’Court’s work in 2007. When Suzanne first said pastel artist, I took pause, having preconceived notions that the medium of pastel was for traditionalists. But Angela’s soft pastels are anything but conservative. Using an array of color to rival a Pantone book, Angela builds layer upon layer to create still life scenes and figure works with a surprising use of space and an innovative take on how an empty vase or a ceramic cup can appear. Milton Avery and Stuart Davis come to mind.

Placed in seemingly random fashion, and somewhat off kilter or skewed, Angela’s compositions are in fact consummately balanced and harmonious. She has a unique way of placing objects on a table. I am often struck by the emotional impact Angela’s artwork can have on me—an empty vessel with three roses can reset my thinking about objects and their import in our lives. We sense a human presence when there is none. By lovingly depicting everyday objects of a chair, a table, a cup, she shows us how to revere simple lines in space, drawn with rich, saturated color.