Review - John Kirby: All Passion Spent

John Kirby: All Passion Spent, Flowers Gallery Cork Street, until 30 March 2019 

The art of painting is to still time and motion. As a result, the moment at which the artist chooses to freeze time is of real significance. The moments selected by John Kirby are those that reveal dis-ease.

The characters in his images pose awkwardly in scenes of everyday existence where their expressions suggest embarrassment and their body language points to a fundamental lack of comfort in their own skin and the relationships they inhabit. Whether the forced gaiety of those wearing party hats in ‘House of Fun’ or the unnatural pose of the naked child between the legs of a father-figure in ‘Ordinary People’, we are clear that what is depicted is not fun and is not ordinary. Kirby utilizes the static nature of painting to hint at the torment underlying the civilised facade of our culture.

Born in Liverpool in 1949, Kirby studied at Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art. He has indicated that his refined style has been influenced by the American realist painter Edward Hopper and the Polish-French modern artist Balthus. He has spoken of living ‘day to day with a cast of characters from my past into the present’ and this small retrospective to mark his 70th birthday brings together new and recent works alongside selected paintings from the past two decades, focusing on the conversation between past and present portrayed by that enduring cast of characters.

Kirby may be thinking of stilling time still further having hinted in an interview that this is possibly the last time he’ll have a show. The title of the exhibition, All Passion Spent, could lead in that direction with Kirby intimating that he has said what he has to say in and through his work.

Much of Kirby’s work has been driven by the expression of repression through the stiff and secretive interiority and surreality of his images. This driven-ness has its roots in internal struggles relating to religion and sexuality. Kirby’s use of the line ‘All Passion Spent’ from Milton's Samson Agonistes may suggest the private search of his characters for calm, as well as an increasing sense of personal peace.

One hopes that Kirby’s passion is not spent and that the showing of his work is not stilled as it would be fascinating to see the images that could result from the stilling of the storm in Kirby’s work and characters; to see what peace may look like on the stage that he has constructed.

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Nick Drake - Day Is Done.

Exhibitions round-up

London's commercial galleries currently have high profile exhibitions featuring many of the major figures in later Modern Art.

Throughout the autumn, Hauser & Wirth is devoting all three of its London galleries to a presentation of works from the collection of Reinhard Onnasch. A celebration of Onnasch’s longstanding passion for art and collecting, ‘Re-View: Onnasch Collection,’ the exhibition focuses on the period between 1950 and 1970, which saw the birth of some of the most important artistic movements of the 20th century. It features significant works including iconic examples of Pop Art, Fluxus, Colorfield, Assemblage, Minimalism and Abstract Expressionism from the New York School of Art, many of which have never been presented before in London.

Raw Truth: Auerbach-Rembrandt is at Ordovas and brings together a striking group of landscapes and portraits by the 17th century Dutch painter, Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, and Frank Auerbach, the renowned British artist. This is the first collaborative exhibition to be presented by the newly renovated Rijksmuseum and Frank Auerbach is the first contemporary artist ever to show alongside works from their collection.

Candy, at Blain|Southern, is the first time that paintings from Hirst’s Visual Candy series have been presented together exclusively, and candy spill works by Felix Gonzalez-Torres serve as a counterpoint to the paintings. The exhibition showcases the ways in which each artist used the signifier of candy during the early 1990s, exploring questions of pure aesthetics and identity.

Amidst all these well known names I was also interested to discover P.J. Crook at Alpha Gallery. Brian Sinefeld cites Balthus and Magritte as artists who have worked within a similar framework as PJ Crook. These artists 'whose surrealistic works of static, quirky realism belie a powerful mysticism lying below the surface' are akin in their sense of mystery to P J Crook. Cressida Connolly writes: "There is mystery at the heart of these paintings, as if something momentous might be about to take place; or as if a seismic event has already happened, perhaps still unbeknown to the people in the picture. The viewer may be lost within this world of the artist’s devising, or impose a narrative of their own.  Like the silent white owls which swoop though some of the night-time paintings, PJ Crook always invites the imagination to take flight."

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King Crimson - The Power To Believe.