Each month, Pleasance Islington has a new display in the foyer.

June's exhibition will features the works of Rosie Hartnell.

Click on a picture below to see a larger image.Click here to read more about Rosie.

White Static	My Comfort	Truly Madly Deeply
Aqualibra	Rosie Hartnell	Precious

Rosie Hartnell - Artist Statement

"For me, art is a process - a journey of communication between artist and participant that begins with the first drip of paint, long before the gallery. My work invites the viewer to explore emotion - tragic and passionate. My work is inspired by the fragility of human connectiveness and draws its strength and passion from a Christian spiritual perspective.

I choose to resist adhering to the world's ideal of beauty. More important than creating something conventionally attractive is the opportunity to design something thought provoking that will empower and inspire others in a positive way. My art exists to provide aesthetic relief far away from the pressures of a consumerist society.
I abandon traditional representation for gestural abstraction where I can rely on energetically applied pigment and chromatic abstraction where I focus on the emotional resonance of colour.

This is pure unadulterated emotion onto canvas. This is metaphysical expression of the dark sorrow of depression or being madly in love.
Rich and fluent, the colours exist in frenzied competition, fusing the rigid structure of the canvas with the centrifugal chaos of the paint.
Splattering paint onto a canvas laid on the floor like the late Jackson Pollock, I draw a lot of inspiration from artists of the New York school of painting in the 1950s and look to surrealism's attention to the irrational and subconscious.

My work relies on the energy, freedom and power of line dripped, the paintbrush dancing above the canvas. Its result is rebellious and full of drama. Floating fragments, whorls of paint directly from the tube - the canvas is a space for action. My work combines the emotional intensity and expression of the German Expressionists and the ideology of painters like Mondrian and Malevich who viewed art as foremost a spiritual experience. I hope my artwork will result in a calming of the soul and uplifting of the spirit, to challenge with contempt the drudgery experience of everyday and encourage people to rediscover joy, excitement and passion".
www.rosiehartnell.com