Change with the Rhythm - Endri Kosturi
"I want to bring to the viewer the performance aspect of my paintings - their own musicality to be precise. While each painting was created, I was hearing a specific tune; at times music helps me to elevate my creativity. I want the viewer to experience the original musical moment of creation (the beginning) of each painting, yet also to experience the final finished work visually (the end)" - the artist.
Kosturi’s multi-faceted and introspective canvases delicately blend recognisable figurative elements such as the sea with an abstract sensibility that is unique to the artist. Each of the large sized canvases treat the viewer with a brightened set of tonalities; indeed they are imbued with natural luminescence stemming from a purposefully delicate use of yellow found in various forms throughout each of the images. Collectively, the works interact together to light up the gallery space.
The artworks were previously shown in an exhibition at the Oaktree & Tiger Gallery Space in South Kensington, then shown in an office space in Farringdon, City of London, and now presented in a new online exhibition here.
The catalogue is now available here.
Kosturi’s multi-faceted and introspective canvases delicately blend recognisable figurative elements such as the sea with an abstract sensibility that is unique to the artist. Each of the large sized canvases treat the viewer with a brightened set of tonalities; indeed they are imbued with natural luminescence stemming from a purposefully delicate use of yellow found in various forms throughout each of the images. Collectively, the works interact together to light up the gallery space.
The artworks were previously shown in an exhibition at the Oaktree & Tiger Gallery Space in South Kensington, then shown in an office space in Farringdon, City of London, and now presented in a new online exhibition here.
The catalogue is now available here.
Salut d'Amour
The pictures are multilayered, gritty in texture. In each case, the image appears as in one layer of space – there is no illusion of space, no recession, no spatial depth. They are all surface; shallow space. Part of the painting is campitura – an almost monochrome area of colour, created by the overlapping of the layers. The act of writing, also usually so explicit in Kosturi’s work, is not the focus here – or at least, is not read as such. In this series any hand-writing is more like that made in the sand, sometimes partly washed away. ‘A painting is like a dream’, he says, capturing the essence of what is layered and elusive and subconscious. ‘Salut d’Amour’, painted in the morning, refers to when the sun kisses you and warms your skin and describes the point between memory and the moment. The layers on the painting are literally still peeling away, like old manuscript pages, veiling then revealing messages we cannot quite recognize or translate.
Rainbow of Hope
His painting ‘Rainbow of Hope’, (painted while listening to Steve Reich’s ‘Violin Phase’) – is a more conscious representation of this subject. While painting, he is thinking of the port of Trieste, of being a child of the sea. This picture started, literally, with a rainbow – stripes of almost neon, rainbow colours dripped vertically down the left hand side of the canvas. In a video of its making, early stages of the painting reveal bold, clearly defined areas of colour and decisive mark-making. As the picture develops, it becomes more coherent overall, more of a surface impression of colour and texture. It is the graphic realization of the regenerative force, painted intuitively rather than formally. ‘The only conscious moment (of the process),’ says the artist, ‘is when I press the painting’ – by which he means the point when he takes off layers, by pressing the wet picture against and transferring these to another unstretched canvas.
Green Ray
Brightness is coupled with the process of layering and philosophical inquiry. It represents a means of illumination rather than a descriptive mechanism. What does this journey through light stand for? Where should we place our emphasis, to please a sensorial perspective − our vision of light − or to uncover what light does to us?
Nevertheless, the dynamic interplay of Kosturi’s brush strokes and scrawls is not to be taken lightly. The raw abandonment of the painter’s scribbling recalls those of another modernist master, Cy Twombly who, like Kosturi, spent a long portion of his life in Italy. Take, for example, the poetic and synaesthetic formants of 'Green Ray'. The work’s title refers the optical phenomenon that occurs every day for a second at dawn and sunset, where the observer witnesses a single green flicker. This in turn is presented through the calligraphic scratches across the work’s surface which reveal lemon green hues of light.
Nevertheless, the dynamic interplay of Kosturi’s brush strokes and scrawls is not to be taken lightly. The raw abandonment of the painter’s scribbling recalls those of another modernist master, Cy Twombly who, like Kosturi, spent a long portion of his life in Italy. Take, for example, the poetic and synaesthetic formants of 'Green Ray'. The work’s title refers the optical phenomenon that occurs every day for a second at dawn and sunset, where the observer witnesses a single green flicker. This in turn is presented through the calligraphic scratches across the work’s surface which reveal lemon green hues of light.
You can see more details about the artworks in the Store here or you can arrange to see the artworks in person by emailing us at [email protected].
Event with Virtuoso Violinist Atsuko Kamisaku
A performance showing the collaboration with Endri Kosturi and Atsuko Kamisaku, virtuoso violinist, in the Oaktree & Tiger Gallery, 13th July 2013.
Download the programme here.
Download the programme here.
