Contrasting styles in 'trading places'
Robert Sedgley returns for his fourth exhibition in Sri Lanka. Entitled 'Trading Places' it highlights his abiding interest in depicting shops, stores and commercial outlets of every description that have had a popular reception in the past.
His watercolours range from intricate paintings of crumbling old colonial style buildings with their many and varied trades to the smaller rapid studies, such as the old Dutch houses in Galle Fort, kiosks and vendor's stalls. However, these are not mere picturesque or quaint renderings of old and decaying buildings, or sentimental representations of the leftovers of a bygone era, but painterly depictions of light, shape and colour.'My paintings of street life are quite objective' he says. 'My subject is buildings, old or modern, but normally with some aspect of age or decay. However, I do not paint romantic ruins; to me there is no romanticism in decay dirt and degeneration. The noise, ugliness and squalour of urban life repels me, but I am also drawn to it as a subject. However, just as I have no wish to romantisize the things I paint nor do I want to condemn them or express anger. Although much of what I see, what I would describe as urban blight, is ugly and often brutal in the way low grade modern buildings are unsympathetically inserted into streets of formally well designed and attractive housing, my hope is that in describing what is there, and expressing it as form and colour, it can in some way be redeemed and reclaimed as art.'
His watercolours range from intricate paintings of crumbling old colonial style buildings with their many and varied trades to the smaller rapid studies, such as the old Dutch houses in Galle Fort, kiosks and vendor's stalls. However, these are not mere picturesque or quaint renderings of old and decaying buildings, or sentimental representations of the leftovers of a bygone era, but painterly depictions of light, shape and colour.'My paintings of street life are quite objective' he says. 'My subject is buildings, old or modern, but normally with some aspect of age or decay. However, I do not paint romantic ruins; to me there is no romanticism in decay dirt and degeneration. The noise, ugliness and squalour of urban life repels me, but I am also drawn to it as a subject. However, just as I have no wish to romantisize the things I paint nor do I want to condemn them or express anger. Although much of what I see, what I would describe as urban blight, is ugly and often brutal in the way low grade modern buildings are unsympathetically inserted into streets of formally well designed and attractive housing, my hope is that in describing what is there, and expressing it as form and colour, it can in some way be redeemed and reclaimed as art.'
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This he does by painting what is there in a manner which on closer inspection reveals interesting combinations of shapes and colours drawn into unity by the light and the underlying grid structure of the architecture.
When he paints shops, the colouful patches and detailed painting of the signboards play a significant part in the overall scheme of the work. His Kandy paintings focus on the elderly, graceful buildings many of them now listed for conservation. Ornate, decorated uper stories where broken window frames, cracked and peeling plasterwork and fading colours proved a richly detailed backdrop in stark contrast to the slick brash signboards and open shop fronts, banners, metal supports and air conditioning units. |
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Architecture has been described as ''frozen music'' and that is another of its attractions for me' he continues.'So I conceive my paintings as musical analogies. The repetition of formal elements, spacing or intervals, clustering of details and lines running through, is a classical structure over which are the incidental elements: open and closed windows,broken fragments, patches of moss and foliage, signboards, traffic and pedestrians, and the interplay of light and shade provide variations which enliven and develop the theme. The whole takes on a symphonic appearance.'
The larger pieces are painted in the studio with the aid of drawings and photographs and often take many days to complete, while the smaller studies are done entirely in front of the motif.
Sitting on the crowded pavements of Kandy for instance, struggling against noise and fumes and constantly changing light, with sometimes only glimpses of the buildings opposite between parked vehicles and crowds of onlookers, he still manages to draw his detailed and accurately proportioned buildings, delicately painted, with tiny figures scurrying about or standing in the shops.
The larger pieces are painted in the studio with the aid of drawings and photographs and often take many days to complete, while the smaller studies are done entirely in front of the motif.
Sitting on the crowded pavements of Kandy for instance, struggling against noise and fumes and constantly changing light, with sometimes only glimpses of the buildings opposite between parked vehicles and crowds of onlookers, he still manages to draw his detailed and accurately proportioned buildings, delicately painted, with tiny figures scurrying about or standing in the shops.