Richard Nott 'Unearthed'

R I C H A R D N O T T U N E A R T H E D

Richard Nott’s paintings are built: they are made out of paint and resin and bitumen and various other substances fused together, gouged, scratched, compressed and even burnt. They are the result of a protracted physical process.

Many painters, for example Frank Auerbach or Leon Kossoff, make paintings incorporating layer after layer, those under-layers build to a final surface, giving us a sense of the struggle of achieving the image, of depiction. In comparison when we look at a work by Richard Nott, we cannot separate the final layer in the same way, not only because he has not sought to depict an observed phenomenon, but significantly because there is no distinction to be made between a final composition and what lies beneath: what we might call the image goes all the way through that slab of matter, like a honeycomb.

Nott’s form of ‘realness’, then, is nothing to do with those forms of realism that depend upon illusionistic painting, in fact it is nearer to its opposite. He is seeking to make work that exists as other objects exist, that has qualities of its own.

The range of qualities Nott achieves in his work are only appreciable when in front of the paintings: from the most delicate veining to chalky opacities, from liquid translucencies to calcified solidity, from rich browns which glow darkly to burnt blacks, ashen and dead. Nott must instigate the physical and chemical processes of existence, largely avoiding tell-tale physical or emotional signifiers of deliberation. Creating a form of expressivity through process rather than gesture. Except that the paintings do bear one very clear mark of the

deliberate: the ‘grid’. If, as is often the case, the grid is taken as symbolising the man-made, the logical, or the rational, then it has rarely been as precariously sited as in Nott’s paintings, cotinuously in danger of being overwhelmed.

Ar t critic and theorist Rosalind Krauss explored the ar tistic obsession with the grid in her essay ‘Grids’ and also in ‘The Originality of the Avant-Garde’: she traces the way in which the grid has managed to contain, or repress, two opposing impulses, one towards the material and the other towards the immaterial - the spiritual, to what lies beyond physical experience. The grid, in other words, has been used at various times to signify both the secular and the sacred and its ubiquity in the careers of twentieth and twenty-first century ar tists is possibly down to its ability to evoke both simultaneously: hence the drastically opposed readings of Piet Mondrian’s work, or Agnes Mar tin’s, or Ad Reinhardt’s.

Many of Nott’s titles bear this out: ‘Mar tyry I’ ’ becomes a Rothko-like revelation of spiritual space, a cur tain of darkness that par ts to reveal the physical world; and by way of an example: ‘Unear thed VI’ becomes a gateway, an immanent revelation. These elements are so merged in all of these paint-ings, so inter-dependent, that we cannot separate the roles they play. Their interpretation, therefore, is as much a matter of where we, as viewers, situate ourselves in relation to that duality, to the material/immaterial, to the secular / sacred, or to the real / depicted, as it is of Nott’s intentions or the paintings themselves.

Mike Walker, 2011

MARTYRY I

mixed media on block pane l

178 x 247 cm

5

MARTYRY I I


178 x 247 cm

6

SANCTUM I


123 x 178 cm

9

10

SANCTUM I I


123 x 178 cm

UNEARTHED I


123 x 123 cm

13

14

UNEARTHED I I

mixed media on block pane l . 123 x 123 cm

15

UNEARTHED I I I


UNEARTHED IV

mixed media on block pane l . 123 x 123 cm16

17

UNEARTHED V


UNEARTHED VI


123 x 123 cm

19

UNEARTHED VI I


123 x 123 cm

20

TABLET I

mixed media on f loated pane l . 95 x 95 cm22

TABLET I I

mixed media on f loated pane l . 95 x 95 cm 23

TABLET I I I


TABLET IV


DERMIS I


DERMIS I I


DERMIS I I I


DERMIS IV


DERMIS V


DERMIS VI


DERMIS VI I


DERMIS VI I I


DERMIS IX


RELIC I

mixed media on block panel . 46 x 46 cm 35

RELIC I I

mixed media on block panel . 46 x 46 cm

36

RELIC I I I


RELIC IV


37

RELIC V


RELIC VI


VESTIGE I

mixed media on floated panel . 42 x 42 cm38

VESTIGE I I

mixed media on floated panel . 42 x 42 cm

39

VESTIGE I I I


VESTIGE IV


Richard Nott was born in Manchester 1964. He currently lives in St. Ives occupying one of the Por thmeor Studios

EDUCATION / RESIDENCIES / AWARDS / PUBLICATIONS

1983-85 B.A (Hons) Fine Ar t, Lancashire Polytechnic1985 Assistant to Andy Goldswor thy1987-89 MA Fine Ar ts, Reading University 1994 Southwest Ar ts, Visual Ar ts and Photography Award1996 Drawing Towards the end of the Century, NSA Publications1999 12th International Weeks of Painting, Residency, Keleia Foundation, Slovenia Telekomovi Mednarodni Slikarski Tedni, Exhibition Catalogue2002 ARTNSA, NSA Publications2003 New Paintings, Exhibition Catalogue, New Millennium Galler y2007 The St Ives School 1997 - 2007, Exhibition Catalouge Ar t Now Cornwall, Tate Publications2008 Richard Nott, Exhibition Catalouge, New Millennium Galler y2010 Cipher, Exhibition Catalogue, Millennium2012 Unear thed, Exhibition Catalogue, Millennium

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2012 Unear thed, Millennium2010 Cipher, Millennium2008 Richard Nott, New Millennium Galler y, St. Ives, Cornwall2006 Richard Nott, Dean Clough, Halifax, Yorkshire2005 Platform, One’O’Two Galler y, London2003 New Paintings, New Millennium Galler y, St. Ives, Cornwall2001 Transition, Newlyn Ar t Galler y, Cornwall

SELECTED MIXED EXHIBITIONS

2009-2012 Mixed Winter Exhibition, Millennium2007 Ar t Now Cornwall, St. Ives The St Ives School, Howard Gardens Galler y, Cardiff2002 Constructed, Newlyn Ar t Galler y2001 Richard Nott, Sax Impey & Ged Quinn, Fermyn Woods Contemporary Ar t1998 Common Ground, Richard Nott & Sax Impey, Book Galler y, St. Ives1997 Landmarks, Richard Nott, Sax Impey & Carole McDowall, Cafe Galler y, London1996 Drawing Towards the End of the Century, Newlyn Ar t Galler y1994 Richard Nott & Philip Smith, Alternative Ar t Galler y, London New Ar t in the South West, Eight Selected Ar tists, Spacex Galler y, Exeter

Published by Millennium to coincide with the exhibition ‘Unearthed’ by Richard Nott

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Interview Film by Alban Roinard and Joseph Clarke

ISBN 978-1-905772-55-1

Street-an-PolSt . Ives Cornwal l01736 793121mai l@mil lenniumgal lery.co.ukwww.mi l lenn iumga l lery.co .uk

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Richard Nott 'Unearthed'

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