PRESS RELEASE
Brian Sayers paints objects, laid out on table-tops that occupy the entire pictorial space apart from an occasional top edge that gives way to a dark space beyond. He has been pre-occupied with this subject, almost without exception, since he first exhibited with Long & Ryle in 1991. These are objects remembered or invented, not observed. Pipes, funnels, ball bearings, lemons, bowls and rods are laid out, in different configurations, in every painting; sometimes appearing to adhere to a grid, at other times overlapping incoherently as if to deny a clear reading of the space they occupy. Sayers’s paintings are not typical to the tradition of still life: there is no clear kinship between the depicted objects, nor is there a delight in capturing the visual effect of surfaces or colours, nor are the objects being used for the sake of formal development or painterliness (in the manner of William Scott or Morandi). Instead the artist is operating like an aerial photographer documenting a city, or an archeologist uncovering the remains of an ancient settlement. For this reason the space between these objects is important: there is a sense that it has a purpose – the conveyance of some kind of traffic. Adding to the intellectual complexity and the symbolic meaning are the cameo appearances of human figures from other artists’ work – a plump Cupid from Botticelli (in Opus Dei) some suited and trilbied gents from Jack Vettriano (in Still Life with ‘The Singing Butler’) and a kneeling girl from Henry Darger (in ‘The Singing Butler’ Revisited). In his new paintings there is a greater looseness and range to the handling of the paint itself. This added element of mark-marking heightens the playfulness of Sayers work - calling into question the solidity of forms: the scaffolding supporting the façade is revealed. Please click here to view Brian Sayers's paintings For further information please contact Sarah Long or Tom Juneau at the gallery, 020 7834 1434 or email longandryle@btconnect.com
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