Exhibition statement:
Nigel Hewitt’s latest exhibition tells three types of narratives: the layering and creating of each individual image; the marked transition of a whole body of work; as well as an interrogation of the broad narrative of culture and history in the works’ subject matter.
Two images in the exhibition come from the end of ‘The Shadower’ series. The Shadower VI and VII are transitional images; for in them there is a movement towards a misty, abstract depth. It is these two images and their pursuit of ambiguous light and space that inevitably led to the adoption of the wax medium. This change in medium is necessarily mirrored by a change in subject matter. With the use of wax and oils the creation of an image becomes more responsive and intuitive and the process of creating works is now governed by the use of layers. The varying opacity and transparency of the wax allows for the image’s full history to be recorded: every layer and every moment of development of each image is visible through the final surface.
Underneath the aesthetic surface of Hewitt’s new wax works lies a history and record of all that has passed before. Much like the literal palimpsest that is at the base of ‘The Cartographer’ the wax works themselves are a layered history which record and question the mechanisms of power; those of mapping, language, navigation and economy. This power, as it has been manifested throughout history as well as how it continues to function today, is brought to our attention through symbolic objects that contrast and compliment one another. The work recognises that the way we live is determined by the past, whether visible or invisible. It is in this recognition of the importance of history that we can acknowledge the present as a formation of tomorrow’s history.
These works are about contemporary fear; they shake us out of our complacency.
The work contemplates human, environmental and cultural development. It considers the imposition and power of language as it has delineated and implicated maps, land and oceans which have been inscribed by, that which appears at times to be, arbitrary and irrelevant. A language of fear covers the land and ocean in Hewitt’s images, as the world is being re-colonised and reinscribed by a foreign ideology. The ship, which transcends time and history, scatters language and values through the contemporary world. It is in these images that we are metaphorically witnessing the formation of history, as it is happening now.
The use of wax in the new medium is essential to the interpretation and contemplation of these images. For it is in the ambiguity and indeterminacy of the space created by the aesthetics of a wax surface that we have chance to consider the implication of the work’s subject matter. It in the depth of the images that we are able to leave behind our everyday world (which is all too often busy with technology, communication and progress) and consider the long-term implications of now.+57cmX40cm+mixed+media+oil+wax+on+paper+on+canvas(2008).jpg)
Two images in the exhibition come from the end of ‘The Shadower’ series. The Shadower VI and VII are transitional images; for in them there is a movement towards a misty, abstract depth. It is these two images and their pursuit of ambiguous light and space that inevitably led to the adoption of the wax medium. This change in medium is necessarily mirrored by a change in subject matter. With the use of wax and oils the creation of an image becomes more responsive and intuitive and the process of creating works is now governed by the use of layers. The varying opacity and transparency of the wax allows for the image’s full history to be recorded: every layer and every moment of development of each image is visible through the final surface.
Underneath the aesthetic surface of Hewitt’s new wax works lies a history and record of all that has passed before. Much like the literal palimpsest that is at the base of ‘The Cartographer’ the wax works themselves are a layered history which record and question the mechanisms of power; those of mapping, language, navigation and economy. This power, as it has been manifested throughout history as well as how it continues to function today, is brought to our attention through symbolic objects that contrast and compliment one another. The work recognises that the way we live is determined by the past, whether visible or invisible. It is in this recognition of the importance of history that we can acknowledge the present as a formation of tomorrow’s history.
These works are about contemporary fear; they shake us out of our complacency.
The work contemplates human, environmental and cultural development. It considers the imposition and power of language as it has delineated and implicated maps, land and oceans which have been inscribed by, that which appears at times to be, arbitrary and irrelevant. A language of fear covers the land and ocean in Hewitt’s images, as the world is being re-colonised and reinscribed by a foreign ideology. The ship, which transcends time and history, scatters language and values through the contemporary world. It is in these images that we are metaphorically witnessing the formation of history, as it is happening now.
The use of wax in the new medium is essential to the interpretation and contemplation of these images. For it is in the ambiguity and indeterminacy of the space created by the aesthetics of a wax surface that we have chance to consider the implication of the work’s subject matter. It in the depth of the images that we are able to leave behind our everyday world (which is all too often busy with technology, communication and progress) and consider the long-term implications of now.
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