No seven year itch for Maggi Hambling
The Sea: LS Lowry and Maggi Hambling
The Lowry, Salford Quays
Until Sun 31January 2010
Although it is seven years ago on Monday, (30 November 2002) since Maggi Hambling, one of Britain's most distinguished contemporary artists, made her first North Sea painting, there’s certainly no sign of her passion for the ocean diminishing.
As visitors to her exhibition at The Lowry will see, Maggi’s relationship with the sea continues to flourish as she remains consumed and inspired by it. Maggi keeps painting the sea as she is always trying to capture that perfect moment when the wave curls, crashes and breaks.
Hambling explains, “Early each morning I draw the sea, much as a pianist practices scales, or a footballer limbers up. Back in the studio, in oil paint on canvas, I try to make the waves rise in their curves of the moon, become almost solid for a second, then crash, shatter and dissolve. The sound and speed of their action is what I’m trying to paint.
Even after all these years the sea never ceases to surprise me. Everything is always in a state of flux, everything is always changing. I feel compelled to keep coming back, to the sea, to keep painting the sea to try and capture.” I love the fact that nothing is the same two days running.”
Maggi Hambling’s extremely powerful paintings of the North Sea are shown alongside LS Lowry's own deeply compelling sea paintings and drawings. Seascapes are perhaps the most surprising element of LS Lowry’s work for those familiar simply with his industrial scenes. Yet the sea was an important metaphor for Lowry – described by The Guardian as ‘the greatest seascape painter of the 20th century’; Maggi Hambling is as absorbed and excited by the sea as her predecessor.
Hambling observes, “The surprise of Lowry’s sea-paintings is that they are unpeopled. He achieves a stark clarity which speaks directly to us. He can create the undercurrents as if by magic, with great economy of mark and minimal gesture. The results are hypnotic and contemporary.
The Sea, by Maggi Hambling, a beautifully produced book of words and images, accompanies this exhibition.
Posted on Friday, 27 November 2009 under Press Galleries Press