Post on 27-Sep-2020
Alic
e M
um
ford
Composite Shadows
Front cover:
Autumn Picnic / 2018
Oil on canvas
61 x 76 cm
Alice MumfordComposite Shadows
16 Sept –7 Oct 2019
Belgrave St Ives22 Fore Street, St IvesCornwall TR26 1HE
01736 794888
info@belgravestives.co.ukwww.belgravestives.co.uk
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Thoughts on the history of shadows
I like to start with Bellini and Mantegna. Prior to these, shadows in
Medieval art had not been important. The rediscovery of Roman
mosaics and painting brought about an awareness of naturalism,
and that meant the painting of shadows. Bellini and Mantegna were
brothers-in-law and often painted the same subject, starting at about
the same place in terms of painting shadows. However they gradually
parted company and developed their own respective leanings.
If we look at later works, we can see that Bellini’s shadows are
naturalistic while Mantegna’s become dramatic. The dramatic shadow
is a bit like a ‘flashbulb moment’ in the way photographers used to
take photos with a huge flashbulb, capturing a dramatic moment, or
like lightning illuminating the landscape for a moment. Maybe those
sudden moments of illumination are fewer and therefore seem more
dramatic. We can see how they developed in chiaroscuro, Caravaggio,
Giorgio de Chirico and later in Alfred Hitchcock films.
Naturalistic shadows depend on half tones and the middle of the
tonal scale. They are many moments and can be either elongated
time or ambiguous time. Half tones give more chance for the passing
of time and are less fixed: Rembrandt’s self portraits, Marandi’s still
lives, the chair in Gwen John’s A Corner Of The Artist’s Room In
Paris, and Bellini’s Madonna and Child, for example.
I once went to Tate St Ives to look at a Bonnard painting with a group
of students. Someone asked, “what time of the day do you think it is?”.
We couldn’t decide. Bonnard makes composite shadows like a comp-
osite character in a book. These paintings are not made from one
moment but from a whole day or time, from being in a place.
The philosopher Henri Bergson’s ideas on time are very helpful in
explaining. He argues that when we measure time we are treating it
in terms of space. Let’s take an hour; an hour is one twenty fourth
of a day, and a day is one revolution of the Earth. That revolution is a
movement in space. An hour is a chunk of that movement. That means
that when we try to measure how long a process takes – say running
a marathon – we may think we are dealing directly with time but all
we are doing, Bergson argues by means of a clock, is comparing two
spatial movements with each other; the locomotion of the runner to
the locomotion of the revolving earth. The lived experience of time
falls out of this equation.
Bergson is trying to think of time as a duration. Duration as he sees
it involves a kind of flow; a flux; an interpretation of the different
elements that make up time. We can’t think of time as discreet
components like seconds, minutes or hours. These are just spatial
markers. They mark time but they don’t account for the passing of
time. There has to be a coexistence; an interpenetration of the past
and present, otherwise we can't account for the passage of time, we
just get time as a sort of linear movement.
Composite shadows are time experienced, or, as T S Eliot writes
in the Four Quartets:
‘Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.’
Alice Mumford July 2019
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Fine Rain / 2018
Oil on canvas
61 x 76 cm
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Warm Midsummer, Polgrean / 2018–2019
Oil on canvas
100 x 100 cm
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Mirror and Still Life / 2018
Oil on board
20 x 30 cm
Violet, Blue Shadows / 2019
Oil on board
20 x 30 cm
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Winter Light onRosevidney Fields / 2019
Oil on canvas
61 x 76 cm
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After Bonnard, Composite Shadows I
Oil on board
36 x 25 cm
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The Dresser / 2018
Oil on canvas
61 x 76 cm
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Doors Open on First WarmDay, Polgrean / 2018
Oil on board
20 x 30 cm
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Sunlight on WhiteCotton Curtain / 2019
Oil on canvas
61 x 76 cm
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Brightness after Rain / 2019
Oil on canvas
61 x 51 cm
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Sunshine and Rain / 2019
Oil on canvas
61 x 51 cm
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The Jumpy Yellow Cloth / 2018
Oil on board
20 x 30 cm
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Rosehips, Winter Light / 2019
Oil on canvas
70 x 70 cm
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Peaches and Pink / 2019
Oil on canvas
41 x 56 cm
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Roses and Peaches / 2018
Oil on canvas
60 x 60 cm
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Looking at a CookeryBook / 2019
Oil on canvas
51 x 61 cm
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Afternoon Shadows, LateSummer, Polgrean / 2019
Oil on canvas
51 x 61 cm
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Spring Day from insidethe Shed / 2019
Oil on canvas
25 x 30 cm
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The Sea View, Summer AfternoonLight, Perranuthnoe / 2017–2019
Oil on canvas
100 x 100 cm
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Cool Shade on a Very Hot Day / 2018
Oil on canvas
60 x 60 cm
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Emerald Shutters and Plums / 2018
Oil on canvas
61 x 76 cm
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After Bonnard, Composite Shadows II
Oil on board
40 x 31 cm
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May Sunshine, St IvesSchool of Painting / 2018
Oil on board
81 x 61 cm
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Pink and Violet Grey / 2019
Oil on board
20 x 30 cm
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The Pink Chair / 2018
Oil on board
81 x 61 cm
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View of Portscatho toDodman Point / 2019
Oil on canvas
46 x 35 cm
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Stormy Sea, Portscatho / 2019
Oil on canvas
25 x 30 cm
Silver Roofs, Portscatho / 2019
Oil on canvas
25 x 30 cm
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The Turquoise Jug / 2019
Oil on board
20 x 30 cm
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Green Shuttersand Lilies / 2018
Oil on canvas laid on board
71 x 91 cm
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Contre-jour, St Ives Harbour / 2015
Oil on board
18 x 23 cm
St Ives Harbour / 2015
Oil on board
18 x 23 cm
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Intense Midday Heat inJuly, Polgrean / 2018
Oil on canvas
75 x 90 cm
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Along from the KingHarry Ferry / 2018
Oil on board
18 x 28 cm
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Cider and Melon Pieceson a Hot June Day / 2018
Oil on canvas
61 x 76 cm
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80% Warm / 2019
Oil on board
20 x 30 cm
Black and Pink / 2019
Oil on board
20 x 30 cm
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The Window Upstairs, Polgrean
Oil on canvas
71 x 91 cm
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Alice Mumford RWABorn: 1965 / Columbia
Studied: Dartington Hall 1979–1982
Southwark College of Art and Design 1982–1984
Camberwell School of Art 1984–1987
Falmouth College of Art 1995
Teaching life drawing and painting at
St. Ives School of Painting since 2001
Elected an academician at the RWA, 2010
One person exhibitions
2019 Composite Shadows, Belgrave St Ives
2018 The David Simon Contemporary Award, David Simon Gallery, Bath
2017 Strategic Colour, Belgrave St Ives
2015 Silver Light, Piers Feetham Gallery, London
Colour from Coast to Coast, Belgrave St Ives
2013 First Light, Belgrave St Ives
2011 Taste It, Belgrave St Ives
2008 Jumpy Yellow, Badcocks Gallery, Newlyn
2007 Big Family – Still Life, Belgrave Gallery St. Ives
2006 Featured Artist, Caroline Wiseman, London
Alice Mumford–Recent Work, The Great Atlantic Map Works, Falmouth
2005 Alice Mumford, Belgrave Gallery, London
Summer and Autumn, Badcocks Gallery, Newlyn
2004 Alice Mumford, Badcocks Gallery, Newlyn
2003 Intimate Interiors & Favourite Objects,
Julian Lax, London
2001 Alice Mumford, Cobra and Bellamy, London
Selected mixed exhibitions
2019 Summer Show, Belgrave St Ives
2018 Summer Show, Belgrave St Ives
Winter Exhibition, Belgrave St Ives
2017 Table Talk, Piers Feetham Gallery, London
2015 Summer Show, Belgrave St Ives
2014 Summer Show, Belgrave St Ives
2013 Yuletide: Modern & Contemporary Art & Design,
St Ives Summer Exhibition, Belgrave St Ives
2012 IMS Auction, Christies, London
RWA Open Exhibition, Bristol
2011 Winter Exhibition: Paintings & 3D Works by
Fifty Contemporary Artists, Belgrave St Ives
Stoneman Gallery, Penzance, Cornwall
Josie Eastwood Fine Art, Winchester
2010 MMXMAS, Belgrave St Ives
Josie Eastwood Fine Art, Winchester
Works on Paper Art Fair, The Royal College of Art, London
2009 Three Representational Painters, Belgrave Gallery St. Ives
Josie Eastwood Fine Art, Winchester
British Art Fair, London
New English Art Club Annual Open Exhibition, The Mall Galleries, London
2008 Cornish Painting – A Family Quartet,
Piers Feetham Gallery, London
Josie Eastwood Fine Art, Winchester
British Art Fair, London
2007 St. Ives – Selected Artists, Belgrave Gallery St. Ives
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A Postcard From St Ives, Belgrave Gallery St. Ives
Badcocks at Easter, Badcocks Gallery, Newlyn
2006 New English Art Club Annual Open Exhibition,
The Mall Galleries, London
The Cornish Connection, Belgrave Gallery London
Places and Spaces, Belgrave Gallery St. Ives
Christmas Exhibition, Belgrave Gallery St. Ives
2005 From St. Ives To Newlyn, Caroline Wiseman, London
Inner Light, The Great Atlantic Map Works, St. Just
Badcocks Gallery, Newlyn
2004 The New English Art Club Annual Open Exhibition,
Mall Galleries, London
St. Ives, The Human Figure and Landscape
Julian Lax, London
2003 Winter Miscellany, Julian Lax, London
Rainyday Gallery, Penzance
2002 Aldborough Festival, Piers Feetham Gallery
Rainyday Gallery, Penzance
2001 Cobra and Bellamy, London
Publications
2018 Painting in St Ives: Be inspired by the artists that paint in this
famous artists' colony, Article, Artists & Illustrators Magazine
2017 Strategic Colour, Catalogue Essay, Dr. Ian Massey, Belgrave St Ives
Strategic Colour, Exhibition Preview, Pip Palmer, Galleries Magazine
2016 Colour From Coast to Coast, Book Review, Henry Malt,
The Artist Magazine
2015 Colour from Coast to Coast, Monograph, Dr. Ian Massey,
Sansom & Company
Colour from Coast to Coast, Exhibition Preview,
Nicholas Usherwood, Galleries Magazine
Colour from Coast to Coast, Book Review, Cornish World Magazine
2014 Buying art: In the Frame, Contemporary Still Life,
Feature, House and Garden Magazine
Alice Mumford, Feature, Country Life Magazine
2013 First Light, Catalogue Essay, Richard Selby, Belgrave St Ives
Silver Light, Catalogue Essay, Anthony Eyton RA, Piers Feetham Gallery
Alice Mumford, Feature, Cornwall Today
2012 Five of the Best, Article, The Cornishman
Learning from Bonnard, Feature, Artists and Illustrators
Sophie Conran Q&A, Article, Home & Antiques Magazine
2010 Colour Blast, Catalogue Essay, Michael Bird, Badcocks Gallery
2010 Colour and Charm, Feature, Country Living
2009 It All Started with a Table, Feature, Good Housekeeping
2008 An Engagement with Life, Feature, Cornwall Today
2007 Big Family –Still Life, Catalogue Essay, Peter Davies,
Belgrave Gallery St Ives
St Ives 1975 –2005: Art Colony in Transition, Included Artist,
Peter Davies, St Ives Printing & Publishing Company
Painter’s Palette, Article, Create Your Own Country Home,
Country Living Magazine
2004 A Room with a View, from the Prosaic to the Dramatic,
Feature, Inside Cornwall
2003 The Art of Patience, Feature, The Lady
A New Camberwell Talent, The Antiques Trade Gazette