13 May - 9 June
Candida Stevens Gallery
Chichester, PO19 1BA.
Open Wed, Thurs & Fri 10-5
Sat, 11-2
& By Appt.
On the shelf of Charlotte Evans’s studio, some 3,500 thousand miles away from London in Toronto, Canada, is a catalogue of paintings from the National Gallery’s collection. In this book are countless images that connect the artist with her childhood - a childhood that was split between London and rural Tuscany. In Evans’s latest exhibition with Candida Stevens Gallery, ‘Kiss the joy that flies’, it is the deep-rooted and yet almost entirely subconscious influence of this upbringing that permeates her paintings.
The tenderly painted Cradle, for example, is imbued with references to the Italian Renaissance. Reminiscent of the National Gallery’s ‘The Baptism of Christ’ by Piero della Francesca (c1437), two figures appear, arms around each other, beneath the arch of a full moon. The woman on the right carefully holds a small bird and, like many Renaissance works depicting the Madonna and Child, the figures appear burdened with responsibility as they care for this little creature. In Evans’s use of ultramarine (a pigment that was reserved for the Virgin Mary’s robes) and inclusion of strawberries (a symbol of fertility) on the figure's jacket, we see the lasting imprint of the art of this period on the artist's practice.
It is not just the past that inspires Evans, however. She and her wife share three children, a daughter and twin sons, whose presence can be felt throughout her work. Hope is the thing with feathers, for example, began as one panel based on an Indian miniature entitled ‘Prince with a falcon’ (c1600) but felt unresolved until the artist decided to add a second to the right. In doing so, it evolved into a work that speaks of the relationship between Evans and her daughter, seen here as the bird on the left, and her two sons, seen to the right.
In Bird Boy, a solitary figure wrapped in a colourful, feathered cape stands at the edge of the water beneath the cool glow of a rising sun. Arms spread in preparation for flight, he looks towards the audience in a way that seems both defiant and afraid. Perhaps influenced by Evans’s own experience of being a parent, it is as if the audience is being asked to play the role of Icarus’s father, Daedalus, who warned his son of the dangers of flying too close to the sun but was ultimately powerless to stop him from making his own mistakes.
Drawing inspiration from across the arts, Evans’s life has been punctuated with experiences that have captured her imagination entirely - moments of pure beauty that return to her time and again whilst painting. Witnessing Mark Morris’s ‘L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato’, for example, has had a profound effect. A masterpiece of twentieth century choreography set to Handel’s baroque interpretation of John Milton’s poetry, it is a captivating display of colour and movement in which dancers weave in and out of each other, on and off the wings of the stage. This element of spectatorship is something that appeals strongly to Evans and is mirrored in her use of foliage and tree trunks that frame her works and provide the set through which her characters emerge.
In ‘Kiss the joy that flies’, we see the way in which Charlotte Evans’s identity as an artist shapes her experience of life and how she sees the world. There are stories, pieces of music and works of art seen decades ago that continue to exist vividly in her imagination and inspire her as she paints. From the Venetian ironwork pattern that finds its way onto a figure's cape in Hope is the thing with feathers to the inclusion of a pointed red shoe borrowed from The National Gallery's ‘Wilton Diptych’ (c1395) in Cradle, Evans absorbs and stores details that others might not notice. It is this rich tapestry of artistic influence that echoes so strikingly through her work.
Essay by Isabella Joughin
