Gallery rosenfeld is delighted to host 'Sun Wreck', the second solo exhibition of the British artist Araminta Blue.

'For me these paintings are about hope, energy and colour; bursting out of shells, washed up in currents, plus air, light and warmth on skin'

The artist explains her thoughts about this latest body of works. Certainly, in respect to her previous exhibition, the strength and brightness of colour has become bolder and filled with positivity and joy which is surely related to the wonders of childhood which the artist is currently experiencing to the full. This has awakened in the artist, extremes of sensation and emotion but coupled with hope and fear. 'Rawness, honesty and vulnerability meets protective shells that can be seen bursting open in these works'. (Araminta Blue)

Nature is an ever-present in these works, particularly wind, water and light yet also birth and pain.

Araminta Blue's paintings have always featured space as much as gesture. There are moments of great intensity allied to other moments of extreme calm. Hands and legs appear out of gesture and abstraction. In 'Red Sun' the extended arms reach upwards to the heat and light of the red sun but within the same work there are various branches from unseen trees, everything co-existing in the same space.

In 'Sea Bed', the gestures are denser and wilder with an arm and hand emerging from what appears to be the seabed with fishes also prominent.

In 'Sea', the artist creates a richly and very expressively painted face, lying on her back in a maelstrom of movement and rich, lush colour that recalls Burne-Jones's 'Ophelia'. This iconic image also casts its shadow over the painting 'Light Filters Through' and 'Sunrise'. However,there is yes aping a previous work but more a subtle acknowledgement towards the history of art and more specifically British art.

The freedom of gesture, assured handling of paint and colour makes her appear to be an artist with far greater years to her career . 'Sunrise' is a case in point where another beautifully painted head full of strong colours is lying on what appears to be a sea, whilst above a bright sun is bringing it's light to a new day. Whereas 'Sunrise' is bathed in a golden light, 'Cold Sun' as the title suggests is icy cold, the sun, a shining white light, with an elongated blue figure diving down away from the light.

The largest painting on view is the triptych 'Light and Time' where, on the central panel, a reclining body is lying down, whilst on the top of the canvas a hand and what could be a long leg reach out to the first panel where a fading sun looks over a hazy landscape.

The element of nature intermingled with human hands dominates the third and last part of the work. With the increased ambition of size, the artist has created a very brave and ambitious mixture between painterly gesture and empty space. There is a palpable sense of movement and of everything being in flux in these paintings with the figures nearly always reaching upwards or downwards towards the light or away from the light. The 'energy' the artist speaks of is readily visible and helps give the works their originality.

In this, only her second solo exhibition in the gallery, Blue has produced a great leap forward from 'Silt', her first show. Both the freedom with which she uses space and the highly original way she has found to allow figuration to appear mysteriously out of abstraction, belie an artist who is continually trying to the boundaries of her practice.

Press release courtesy rosenfeld