Patterns and textures carry an ability to transport us into time or an era in a more visceral way, bringing memories and atmosphere to the forefront in a less intellectualised but rather felt way - a mothers paisley shawl, the texture of a handrail, the shape of ferns from that summer.
Both Charlotte Keates and Norman Gilbert share a preoccupation with a sense of place and time by painstakingly balancing the composition & playing with perspective through the use of pattern and colour.
While Gilbert approached painting methodologically, working in threes to produce first a charcoal drawing, then a black and white piece made with indian ink on board to ascertaining the dark and light areas of the image, before finally painting the finished colour oil on panel piece, Keates has always worked instinctively - starting with an element of a known structure and allowing the paint to unravel organically into a finished work. This new body of work by Keates was made with Gilberts in mind, borrowing from this regime of threes in order to explore the effect on her work.
With Keates and Gilberts' work in conversation, this presentation creates a space, weaving memory, experience, dream and reality in a patchwork of lives dedicated to the daily process of painting.
