Current:

Old Masters Reinterpreted
Briony Anderson, Joanna Hill, Yigal Ozeri, Rebecca Stevenson, Masaki Yada
15 July – 28 August 2009
ROLLO Contemporary Art, 51 Cleveland Street, London W1T 4JH
T: +44 (0)20 7580 0020 | E: info@rolloart.com | www.rollart.com

Briony Anderson | Studies for Raeburn
5 – 7 August 2009
The Royal Society of Edinburgh, 22-26 George Street, Edinburgh, EH2 2PQ
www.edinburghartfestival.com

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This current series of paintings responds to the portraits of Sir Henry Raeburn (1756-1823), specifically to those set against a landscape backdrop, although not in a straightforward topographical sense. The paintings are limited to the landscape elements of each full image, studying the act of looking rather than direct observation. Landscape is explored as a stage-managed set, theatrical and romantically charged. The works do not adhere to his formulas, and by removing easily identifiable props and motifs, the work is given a privative character, a removal, withdrawal and deprivation of whatever was concrete. Through this defamiliarisation the work no longer corresponds to pictures of the landscape as appraised according to convention at their inception.

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Briony Anderson lives and works in London and is a current holder of ACME's Fire Station Studio Residency. Based in the north-east of Scotland until 2007, she realised projects at Peacock Visual Arts, Limousine Bull and Aberdeen Art Gallery.

Current research and work includes collaborative practice; the most recent collaboration, an intervention in Aberdeen Art Gallery (2008) which rehung specifically selected works from the collection and archives throughout the gallery, enabling a re-evaluation through the work’s embedded reinterpretation.

Drawing and painting occupy a prominent place within her practice and a series of collaborative performative works have developed as an extension of this work, which often seeks a reinvestigation of the cultural significance of objects, traditions and events. Past projects include, Dances for Landseer (2006/7) – performative responses to selected paintings by Edwin Landseer (1802-1873) and Two (2007), a gallery intervention and publication. Continuing to respond to historical works of art, current projects include a series of paintings, which focus on specific elements within late eighteenth and early nineteenth century portraiture. The idea of series is central and with this area of investigation, paintings have become limited to elements of each full image.