Art SG | Booth BE07: Jordan Ann Craig, Martyn Cross, John Hoyland, Hew Locke, Laetitia Yhap
Martyn Cross (b. 1975, Yate, UK) lives and works in Bristol, UK. Cross is primarily a painter, creating works that speak to ancient and mythic lands. Applying thin layers of dry-brush pigment, the paintings are reminiscent of unearthed artefacts. Drawing on a myriad of concepts from mythology and the medieval, Cross' works personify the landscape. Figures, eyes and solitary limbs emerge from clouds and rivers, speaking to an alternate fiction. Ambiguous narratives are formed in reoccurring scenes and motifs, creating an immersive world. His first institutional solo show took place in 2023 at Flatland Projects, Bexhill on Sea, UK, the same year in which he was shortlisted for the John Moores Painting Prize.
John Hoyland RA (b.1934 Sheffield, UK - d.2011 London, UK) was one of the most inventive and dynamic abstract painters of the post-war period. Over the span of more than a half-century his art and attitudes constantly evolved. A distinctive artistic personality emerged, concerned with colour, painterly drama, with both excess and control, with grandeur and above all, with the vehement communication of feeling. Hoyland's recent solo retrospective Doors of Perception: The Paintings of John Hoyland, was on view through at Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre, Latvia. Hoyland's work in included in many prestigious collections including the Royal Academy of Arts, UK; Tate, UK; Arts Council Collection, UK; Museum of Modern Art, NY, USA and Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, CT amongst many.
Hew Locke RA OBE (b. Edinburgh, UK, 1959) spent his formative years (1966-80) in Guyana before returning to the UK to complete an MA in sculpture at the Royal College of Art (1994) and was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 2022. Locke explores the languages of colonial and post-colonial power, how different cultures fashion their identities through visual symbols of authority, and how these representations are altered by the passage of time. These explorations have led Locke to a wide range of subject matters, imagery and media, assembling sources across time and space in his deeply layered artworks. In 2022/3, Locke's Duveen Galleries commission The Procession was on view at Tate Britain, London and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK. The artist's work Gilt, for the Met Museum Façade Commission was on view through May 2023 in NY, USA.
Laetitia Yhap (b. 1941, London, UK) graduated from Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in 1962. Following her graduation, and, through the support of the Leverhulme Research Scholarship, she travelled to Italy for a year to research Renaissance art and architecture. In 1965, she gained her postgraduate degree from the Slade School of Fine Art. Yhap lives and works in Hastings, UK. Yhap is best known for intricate paintings of fishermen on the beaches of Hastings created on unusually shaped panels individually hand-made by Yhap for each work. Born in England during the Second World War, Yhap has Austrian and Chinese heritage, which, according to her, throughout her life created a feeling that she didn't belong. Finding solace in art making and, later, in the Hastings fishing community, she has forged a unique and important voice within British art history. Yhap's work can be found in many renowned collections including Tate, UK; Arts Council of Great Britain, UK and Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, UK, amongst many. Her first solo show with the gallery was on view at Hales London in September 2023.