280 PEAS by KATE McCRICKARD

Kate McCrickard, Peas, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 38 x 40 cm

 OPEN THE BOX

at ART FIRST, Eastcastle St, London, until May 17th

This fork looks more like a garden fork - perhaps it feels just as heavy and unsubtle to a small child. Her clothes are subdued, her hair cut is conventional, she is a solitary figure. And a person who's not going to be distracted. The artist has captured what the colour supplements might call mindfulness, a moment of exquisite concentration on the here and now. Her stillness  is set against a background fizzing and popping with colour, a bright world seen with the immediacy of a child's vision.

Studio 2 monotype, 26 x 28cm

Painter, monotype, 26 x 28cm

These monotypes  again press us up against the private world of children.  We are allowed to peep at their activities, careful not to disturb or intrude, and they repay us by getting on with what really matters at that moment, ignoring the bystanders.

The artist says 'I realised it wasn't twee to depict kids in domestic settings through looking at those who had  done it before to great effect' 

Below is Eduarad Vuillard's  Children in a Room, with a characteristic exploration of colour and pattern

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Open the Box is Kate McCrickard's first London exhibition. ART FIRST also has an exhibition of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham's later works in the Main Gallery until May 17th

www.artfirst.co.uk/art_first_projects.html
www.artfirst.co.uk/exhibitions.html

www.arthermitage.org/Edouard-Vuillard/Children-in-a-Room.html