Review: Mark Surridge, ‘Three Waters’
I’m standing looking out to sea. Being here makes me wonder how it’s possible for any Cornish-based artist to avoid this sublime backdrop in their work. Mark Surridge strives to echo the Cornish countryside whilst addressing ideas of human instinctual sensations. Central to his work, and parallel to its public emergence, Surridge has revealed the recording, in paint, of his connections to his surroundings which is presented here, in his second solo exhibition in St Ives.
It is an enjoyable show: more intimate and easier to negotiate than his previous showing in the Tate St Ives. In the warm glow of the Millennium Gallery, the paintings speak not of the billowing ponds, or the heaving bowels of the earths land but of experience and relationships.
His paintings mark a decisive moment, which once taken, drive him to profoundly new masterworks, in which translucent veils of vaporous colour seem suspended in shifting space.
Many of his pieces deliver concoctions of washy meadows and striking opaque shapes, where colour appears shamelessly savoury. Surridge applies texture through light and dark, warm and cool as if conjuring up a new recipe of simplicity, that visually explores the rawness and modest materials involved.
What is most striking is how Surridge manages to record the mysterious and unquenchable commotion of an artist at work with the landscape. Pursuing an inquisitive approach to painting, he uses primary inspiration sourced directly from the elemental landscape. Materials in their rawest form; combining pigment, sand, sawdust, soil and carborundum. Perhaps explaining why his work must be considered more a performance with the landscape, as opposed to celebratory records of its ‘beauty’, like many before him.
Examining the paintings, I find myself thinking of Monet and his ‘Water Lily Pond’. This is not surprising upon reading that Surridge explores a sense of wonder, with primitive feelings of the sublime, Zen and Chinese poetry; all centering on the sense of ‘stillness’ and ‘reflection’… the physical reflection in the pond water and the contemplative reflection within oneself.
The vitality of the paintings shines through in subject and consciousness. It is upon staring into the abyss of ‘Filtered breeze’ a large, bleaker painting that I come to realise, his work is less about subject and geared more toward consciousness. It wasn’t quite the ‘eureka’ moment I was anticipating. After watching his interview, I had expected a more profound meaning in the works. But the life of Surridge himself is what reflects so distinctly in the seductive landscapes captivated in a subtle and humble manner. Seemingly self-aware he claims to believe that nature's patterns can be found within us.
The hang of the show was crucial. Abstract paintings risk losing their individuality when strung out ‘on a washing line’ style display; his work certainly requires space to breathe. I suppose the only off-note is sounded in the utilisation of space. ‘Sound River’, the most aesthetically pleasing, was placed rather startlingly to the right of the final staircase. Perhaps deprived from its deserving full appreciation. While the Millennium Gallery may be a little smaller, it has a distinctive and authentic approach to contemporary art. With three floors of exhibition space, it holds a level of intimacy, achieved only through its quaint and idyllic setting.
One result is an intensified sense of the here and now, a moment that seems achingly fleeting, poised to slip away. Surridge hopes to create an experience of the landscape that we can experience for the short moments in which we observe a painting. But if we indulge ourselves enough time to truly observe the painting, the once subtracted areas have so much more to say than we could have ever imagined.
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