" In my beginning is my end…….In my end is my beginning."
T.S.Eliot East Coker
Hannah Maybank is well-known for pushing the boundaries of painting as a
two-dimensional discipline through her transformation of the flat painterly
surface into one that ripples, splinters, overlaps, and protrudes. In this new
body of work she combines the three-dimensionality of her sculptural surfaces
with the conventions of historical landscape painting and illusory perspective.
It has long been suggested that if a painting is created in such a way as to
draw attention to its own method of construction, the visible method of
creation undermines the success of illusory representation. The material
presence of paint and its method of application creates tension between the
painting's own reality and the representational scene depicted on its surface.
Calling attention to their own material fragmentation, Maybank's works deny the
possibility of painterly deception. However in new works such as The
Invitation and Mirrored Oaks, she has turned to the illusory
possibilities of painting. Pathways lead our eyes from the foreground of the
painting, through clusters of trees towards a horizon. Embracing the
conventions of the landscape genre, Maybank finds herself in a better position
to rupture its pretence.
Maybank's paintings have an otherworldly quality about them, employing
recurring motifs such as trees and flowers. The works begin as a series of
fluid, almost calligraphic ink drawings. The tree silhouettes can be found
repeated and resized throughout Maybank's canvases to create divisions and
protrusions across the monochromatic field. This repetition de-familiarises
consensual conceptions of the landscape while re-affirming her longstanding
relationship with the cycles within life, echoing the processes of life, growth
and decay as well as the life cycle of the painting. These paintings offer a
position where certain information is sought and given slowly; through content,
composition and process, paintings grow and die, are built up and then fall
apart. They are an invitation into an illusion, an invitation into their making
and an invitation into the cycle of things.
Hannah Maybank was born in Stafford in 1974 and graduated from the Royal
College of Art MA Painting course in 1999. This is Hannah Maybank's third solo
exhibition at Gimpel Fils. This year her work has been exhibited at ArtSway's
New Forest Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale. In 2008, Maybank had a major
solo show at The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, and was artist in residence at
ArtSway in the New Forest, Hampshire in the winter of 2007. Her residency at
ArtSway culminated in a solo show there in spring 2008. She lives and works in
London.
Hannah Maybank was born in Stafford in 1974 and graduated from the Royal
College of Art MA Painting course in 1999. This is Hannah Maybank's third solo
exhibition at Gimpel Fils. This year her work has been exhibited at ArtSway's
New Forest Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale. In 2008, Maybank had a major
solo show at The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, and was artist in residence at
ArtSway in the New Forest, Hampshire in the winter of 2007. Her residency at
ArtSway culminated in a solo show there in spring 2008. She lives and works in
London.
