East End Review

Tag: Matthew Krishanu

  • Aviary exhibition wings its way to Transition Gallery

    Alice Sielle, Raven facing right 620
    ‘Raven Facing Right’ by Alice Sielle

    You don’t have to be a twitcher to enjoy birdwatching in East London, as a new exhibition of drawings, paintings and sculptures of birds attests.

    Aviary, which is at Transition gallery this month, is an exhibition of paintings, sculptures and drawings of birds by 16 artists.

    “It’s not a big space, and it’s quite high up as well, so we really want to ram it so you step into something that feels animated with all these birds,” says painter Matthew Krishanu, the exhibition’s co-creator.

    Acorn & Jay Rose Wylie 620
    ‘Acorn & Jay’ by Rose Wylie

    Three of the artists in the exhibition (Sutapa Biswas, Aubrey Williams and Rose Wylie) have works in the Tate collection.

    Krishanu will be displaying some of his own paintings of crows, and traces his interest in the birds back to his childhood growing up in Bangladesh.

    “We’d often see crows around and I’d be fascinated by them, they’d be picking out bits of refuse on the side of the road and they’d be just everywhere,” he says.

    For Krishanu, ‘bird art’ is very different from other types of animal portraiture.

    “There’s something very domesticated about pet portraiture, whereas there’s more about the spirit of freedom when people sit down to paint birds,” he says.

    ‘Tick Bird’ by Aubrey Williams

    Aubrey Williams’ Tick Bird is part of a series of paintings of the tropical birds of Guyana, the Caribbean and South America. Krishanu says Williams’ work in particular shows how birds can be “signifiers of place”.

    “He was born in Guyana, and when his daughter was growing up he wanted to use the paintings as instructional tools so she knew about all these birds in the Caribbean and South America. Of all the artists in the show his exploration is very culturally grounded.”

    In literature, humans are regularly described as having bird-like features, and Krishanu says some artworks in Aviary function as self-portraits of the artists.

    Lonely Pigeon – Nathan Eastwood 620
    Lonely Pigeon by Nathan Eastwood

    Birds that feature in the exhibition include Alice Sielle’s Raven Facing Right, jays and a ‘lonely pigeon’. Other works include Rose Wylie’s large drawing Acorn & Jay, which incorporates text, collage and paint.

    There will also be watercolours by Sutapa Biswas, Franki Austin’s glasswork and porcelain bird sculptures by Annabel Dover.

    Aviary is at Transition Gallery, Unit 25a Regent Studios, 8 Andrews Road, E8 4QN until 21 May.

  • Painting the past in Another Country exhibition

    Skeleton by Matthew Krishanu
    Skeleton by Matthew Krishanu

    Another Country is the first exhibition to be held at The Nunnery, a new contemporary gallery located a stone’s throw from the Olympic Park. Since opening its doors in January, The Nunnery has showcased the work of two highly acclaimed, award-winning artists Cara Nahaul and Matthew Krishanu.

    These artists have come together to explore the themes of travel, dislocation and memory. They both use photographs from their childhood as starting points for their artwork. While Krishanu uses photos from his own childhood in India as inspiration, Nahaul uses photographs of her grandparents in Malaysia.

    The deft strokes, bold shapes and fresh colours of both artists leave the viewer wanting to know more about the distant lands they depict. But not only are these vibrant compositions easy on the eye, they also explore the artists’ deeply personal relationships to their past.

    Krishanu explain: “The paintings are about stepping into ‘another country’ – one created from a combination of old photographs, memory and imagination.

    “The show was initially inspired by the LP Hartley line ‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there’. I like the idea of being able to enter the past through a painting, as if it still exists. For me memory is about restructuring and re-imagining the past. Essentially, it is an opportunity for me to tell stories in paint.”

    While Khrishanu’s paintings depict his experience of growing up in India and embarking on childhood adventures and games with his brother, Nahaul’s paintings explore the far-off lands of her grandparents which she felt quite distant from.

    Nahaul says: “I was struck by this idea of looking at my own past as something foreign – a physical space unknown and elsewhere. I embrace this dislocation and I try to reflect that in the paintings.”

    In using paint as a way to access the past, both artists explore the complex relationship between the past and memory. Furthermore, by using art to re-imagine the past and transform old memories, the exhibition unearths the ever-shifting, circuitous nature of memory.

    Both artists have been keen to maintain the community spirit of Bow Arts – the educational arts charity which runs The Nunnery. Since the exhibition opened, Krishanu and Nahaul have worked with several local schools, organised talks and are planning an exhibition tour on Thursday 6 March.

    Another Country is at The Nunnery, 181 Bow Road, E3 2SJ until 6 April