Bubble In The Grass

Daniel Freaker’s work explores the painterly qualities of print, video, film and photography through the medium of painting. The filmic reminiscence of film-scenes suggest fragments of a broader narrative which the viewer can interpret. Sitting between abstraction and figuration, Freaker’s paintings play as much emphasis on the materiality of paint as they do the form of the image itself. Where some aspects of the painting are defined and detailed, others are more suggestive and evocative. Contrastingly, Adam Lowenbein’s paintings place his subjects into visual spaces that fuse the interior and exterior into theatrical spaces that are suggestive of “what lies underneath”.  In the age of social media where opinions are formed quickly and expressed directly, Lowenbein is interested in the liminal space that is often ignored – the space that lies deeper and is perhaps concealed upon first inspection. By painting places and objects that occupy the world around him, Lowenbein tries to capture the “murkier unknownness of them”. Whether it is the light from a TV or mobile phone, or the reflection of the sun or moon off a pool, Lowenbein harnesses light to capture a moment lost in thought or reverie. In direct contrast to the idealisation of the visual on social media, Lowenbein’s paintings reveal the uncomfortable and express the precarious.

Shadi Abousada, a Syrian multi-media artist, painter, installation and video artist, deals with reality and the intimate events of life through still-life and figural paintings. By employing symbols sarcastically or mysteriously, Abousada’s penetrating works trigger our attention and curiosity. His figures can directly engage us with their undeviating gaze, or ignore us with their backs turned away from the viewer, leading us to consider the world in which they occupy. On the other hand, William Lim’s all-encompassing and multidisciplinary interests in art, architecture and found objects intersect, amalgamate and influence each other to result in a visual richness and diversity of artistic thinking. Lim’s painted scenes are both real and imagined, yet always maintain a sense of architectural composition with Hong Kong features such as metal window grills, Chinese furniture and curtains, that give a hint of the scenery outside.

Though the themes and subject matter of these works vary between each artist, the thread which joins these works together is their painterly quality and emanation of a joie de vivre, both in terms of their colour palette, but also more subtly in their material application of paint. Whether they are still-lifes, landscapes, or a combination of the two, the works brought together in “Bubble In The Grass” radiate a joy, playfulness, and optimism embodied by Laurie Lee’s poem, “Apples”.

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