Unspoken

Caroline Atkins, 2023

What they are about, above all, is paint: the edge and direction of the brush marks, the drag across the surface, the way the texture catches shadows, the acrylic layered upon layer, sometimes over several months. And what unites them is stillness, quiet, a sense of deliberation, of problems worked through in search of something distinctive and unexplored. The works in this exhibition reflect her focus on the meditative nature of the process itself as well as the character of the paintings. ‘Unspoken’ refers to something understood without being directly stated: calm, contemplative, thought through yet unacknowledged.

Dot grew up in Cornwall and her work has a sense of the great St Ives modernists; she has also spent time living in the Colorado Rockies. She is inspired by wildness and mountains, and her palette is informed by the earth tones of bracken, granite and ancient forest rather than the blue and turquoise you expect of Cornish artists.

In fact her sense of landscape is more about space than place. Her work is resolutely abstract – you’ll look in vain for recognisable features. The triangle in ‘Black’ isn’t a church spire. The crossed lines in ‘Snow on Trees’ might be days scratch-counted on a prison wall. And in ‘Unspoken’, the painting that gives this exhibition its name, the random shapes resist any interpretation. Every line is somehow pushed beyond what the hand would instinctively draw, challenging expectation. Dot’s paintings defy predictability as well as prettiness: what you’re left with is the paint itself, silent and still.

PUBLICATION: Unspoken

Purchase Unspoken

Purchase the Dot Wade exhibition publication for £20 including p&p (£25 worldwide).

Location

UK £20.00 GBP Worldwide £25.00 GBP