Western Morning News (Saturday)
Dreams of what lies beyond our materiality
FRANK RUHRMUND looks at a new exhibition from Luke Hannam
Ihave always admired those artists who have eschewed fashions and trends in the art world, and resolutely have gone their own way. A fact which makes the exhibition The Compass & The Rosary by Luke Hannam – now occupying all floors of Anima Mundi, St Ives – particularly welcome. An artist who spent most of his childhood in Derbyshire on the edge of the Peak district, he studied at Chesterfield and Canterbury at a time when conceptual art was all the rage. Perhaps it was this, but whatever the reason, something prompted him to give up painting for a while and to work instead as a professional musician.
One who has described working hard as “the only guard against mediocrity”, he left South London for the South coast in search of “a language outside of art, and a way to encounter raw feelings, especially those that feel unusual and unnerving.” Happily, he was to find it deep in the East Sussex countryside where he spends part of each day walking and daydreaming. Many of the images and motifs that he explores in his compositions, come to him, in fact, via his dreams which he experiences and remembers with absolute lucidity. From his exhibition title picture The Compass & the Rosary and Elijah & the Angel, to The Young Mariner and Heavenly Bodies, his works are instantly recognisable with their strong colour and use of line which weaves its way sensuously across the surface denoting both the delicacy and strength of the form and spirit of the subject. Paintings made in residency at Bridgepoint studio in Rye near the artist’s home, in a workspace that offered the chance for him work on enormous canvases, the largest of his career so far, they offer a singular view of how what he sees, how he thinks, and, pivotally, how he feels about the human condition and what lies beyond our materiality. It could be said that such works continue the Romantic tradition, embracing reality and mysticism, yet they are not paintings of far off realms of fancy but are firmly rooted in the here and now.
Luke has said working on such a large scale as this has enabled him to unravel new ways of painting. The resultant pictures in different hands could be seen as being grandiose with their romantic, even classical form and gesture, but the deliberate rawness and imperfection of material provides a constant and inescapable reminder of human frailty. Despite their sense of presence, even importance, they remain remarkably humble. A spokesman for the gallery says: “We can think of no more appropriate exhibition than this for us to emerge and welcome the coming of Spring.
“A thought-provoking response to the recent repeated Lockdowns and the global pandemic, and an impressive debut, this is the first time Luke Hannam has exhibited here, while finding a way through the blinding complexities of the human experience, he asks the unanswerable question – when cut adrift are we to be guarded by logic and reason or by emotion and faith?
An artist whose works have been described as “English handwriting with a Mediterranean heat”, and have been shown and collected internationally. Luke’s exhibition The Compass & the Rosary is at Anima Mundi, Street-an-Pol, St Ives, until May 9.