Vincent Rymer
The arts have always uplifted my spirit, given me pleasure, and challenged my notions, beliefs and prejudices. Passion, intellectual stimulus, emotional and psychological expression, fulfilment. These are all contributory factors that keep me working late into the night and early hours of the morning.
Life is fundamentally paradoxical, contradictory and dualistic; recognising these apparently oppositional co-existent forces and accepting the light and dark, delighting in the daily dance of the Sun and Moon is paramount for inner and outer equilibrium and harmony. What I paint is influenced also by the nurtured and reconstructed rural and urban environment, the sacred and profane, capturing sense of space, time and place.
Every day our senses are bombarded by a mass of information, visual bric-a-brac, stimulating a multitude of thoughts, our imagination and emotions. Most of these experiences are siphoned out, negated and discarded. However those that automatically filter through undergo assimilation, deciphering and translation, eventually re-emerging to be expressed.
Defining reality either scientifically, spiritually or pseudo-politically is problematical in this revolutionary, evolutionary world we live in. What defines our existence and how we interpret our perceptions, sensations and insights is intrinsically individualised despite universal, cultural and biological influences. Consequentially no single piece or body of artwork epitomises or encapsulates fully ones vision. They are merely glimpses, transitory realisations, thus the search for the visually expressed quintessential has become my Holy Grail.
The language of abstraction within the visual arts has for me been one of the most significantly meaningful forms of expression. It enables one to present multi-layered visual realities, perceptions etc, either in isolation or simultaneously. The predominant language I am using, characterised by the interplay between the organic and geometric, includes; forms, signs and iconographic metaphors. These physical and imagined motifs are fragmented, collaged, de-constructed, metamorphosised, reconstructed and finally re-presented.
I believe each work of art has its own reality above and beyond that of representation and simulacra, and is open to multi-dimensional interpretation of aesthetic responses. Communicating the esoteric, philosophical, metaphysical and spiritual is extremely difficult and prone to critical attack. Most of the paintings develop after a period of contemplation, meditation, intellectual analysis and reflection, instinctive impulse and intuition. However I never really know what will emerge and I find when the painting is not governed by preconception and ego-consciousness and the ‘I' has let go, what is, is! Translucence can take us to unknown or previously unexplored territories releasing normally suppressed dormant energies and unleashing gestures contrary to maybe the more usual manneristic and formulaic cliché. For me the juxtaposition of the supra-consciously created and composed forms are profoundly related to the atavistic and primal.
As a boy I received one birthday a pocket-sized paperback on the work of Vincent Van Gogh. I spent hours marvelling at his colourful and psychologically charged paintings. In my late teens I became besotted with Leonardo da Vinci and although romanticised, in my imagination he became a kindred spiritual/eclectic Renaissance father figure. He unfailingly enthralled through his seemingly endless thirst for knowledge and his insatiable inventive creativity.
Within the painting context; Titian, Rembrandt, Turner, El Greco, Kandinsky, Chagall, Picasso, DeKooning, Newman, Rothko, Pollock, Kline, Stella, Diebenkorn, G. Richter, Lanyon, Heron, and the sculptors Caro and D. Smith have all to a lesser or greater extent provided inspiration. My philosophical development has been illuminated by the Existentialists, Zen Taoism, Buddhism and Hinduism. Books I have revisited include Gaston Bachelard's Poetics of Space, Ernst Berendt's Nada Brahma (The World Is Sound), Danah Zohar's The Quantum Self and Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics. These writings have been an endless source of information, revelation, inspiration and affirmation.
When you view the paintings: nature, the elements and the seasons, architecture, archaeology, geology, molecular biology and quantum physics are all to some extent presences.
Thank you for your time and perseverance. Vincent Rymer February 2005
QUALIFICATIONS
1972
1975
1986
1989
1990 1992
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Foundation course art & design, Hull
Cert. Ed. (physical education) Durham University
Dip Ad. Hull
BA (hons) art & design, Hull
MA visual studies, art & design, University of Humberside
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OCCUPATION RECORD
1975-1976
1976-1978
1979-1993
1993
2000
2002 |
Taught in secondary school, Hillingdon, London
Cycled around Europe. Worked in a Kibbutz, Israel. Travelled overland to India and Nepal
Taught continuously in Hull Secondary schools
Appointed Head of Creative Arts Faculty and art & design
department at Humphry Davy school, Penzance
Appointed Art Advisor, Cornwall. Resigned 2002
Appointed Head of Art Faculty Practising Artist |
EXHIBITIONS
1988
1990-1992
1993
1994-1997
1994-1995
1994-1996
1995-1998
1995
1995
1996
1996-1998
1997
1997-1998
1998
1998-1999
1998
1999
2000
2001
2003
2004
2005
2006
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Group show, Gallery Contemporary Arts, Hull
Winter Exhibition, Ferens Hull City Gallery
‘Map Out’ Group Show, Cartwright Hall, Bradford
‘Times Four’ Group Show, Artistry Gallery, Hull
Solo Show, Café Gallery, Hull
Open Exhibition, Scarborough Town Gallery
Group show, The Maltings Gallery of Contemporary Art
Group show, Brooks Superstore, Hull
PSA Full and Associate Members show, Penwith Gallery, St.
Ives
Group show, The Bakehouse Gallery, Penzance
PSA Associate Members show, Penwith Gallery, St. Ives
Little Picture group show, Rainy Day Gallery, Penzance
Cornwall Art Teachers Open, County Hall, Truro
Solo Show, Bakehouse Gallery, Penzance
Salthouse Gallery, St. Ives
Roger White showroom, Penzance
NSA Centenary, Summer Exhibition, Newlyn Gallery
The Hall for Cornwall exhibition of Fine and Applied Art,
City Hall, Truro
Organiser/exhibitor, The Large Painting Show (including Sandra
Blow, Bakehouse Gallery, Penzance
Co-Founder/Organiser/Exhibitor, Inaugural Exhibition of Penzance
Society of Artists, Bakehouse Gallery
NSA Easter Exhibition, Newlyn Gallery, Selected by Sasha Craddock, Art Critic The Times
Four Man Show, The Contemporary Gallery, Penzance
Plymouth Society of Artists, City Art Gallery
Organiser/exhibitor ‘Out West’ Exhibition of Contemporary
Art, Mount Street Chapel, Penzance
NSA Summer Exhibition, Newlyn Gallery
Quality of Light International Arts Festival, Peninsular Program
Group Show, Mainline Gallery, Penzance
Quality of Light IAF, Site Specific Installation, collaboration
with Sculptress Sandra Boreham
Mount Street Chapel, Penzance
RCP Society Summer Show, Falmouth Arts Centre
NSA Easter Exhibition, Newlyn Gallery, Selected by Theo Waddington
NSA selected exhibition, Royal West of England Academy
Salthouse Gallery, St. Ives
Rainy Day Gallery, Penzance
Voted full member of NSA
Small Painting Summer Show, Rainy Day Gallery
RCP Society Summer Open, Falmouth Arts Centre
White Gallery, Brighton
Porthcurnoe Gallery/Geevor Mine Group Pendeen
NSA Summer Show
Launderdale House Society Group Show, London
NSA Critics Choice Spring Show, Newlyn Gallery
RCP Summer Light Group Show, Falmouth Arts Centre
Weather Report II selected Group Show, Newlyn Gallery
Small Painting Show, Rainy Day Gallery
IDENTITY Group Show, Newlyn Gallery
NSA TIMES Critics selected Spring Show, Newlyn Gallery
Group Show, Vitreous Contemporary Art, Truro
Summer Group Show, Edgar Modern Contemporary Artspace, Bath
Summer Group Show, Vitreous Contemporary Art, Truro
1 st Anniversary Exhibition, Edgar Modern Contemporary Artspace, Bath
Bodily Space Portrait/Figure Show, Vitreous Contemporary Art, Truro
The Affordable Art Fair, Edgar Modern Stand, London
Christmas Group Show, Vitreous Contemporary Art, Truro
Winter Group Show, Edgar Modern Contemporary Artspace, Bath
Small Painting Group Show, Rainy Day Gallery, Penzance
Selected Works, Market Place Gallery, Marazion
Solo Show, Vitreous Contemporary Art, Truro
Solo Show, Edgar Modern Contemporary Artspace, Bath
The London Art Fair, Edgar Modern Stand, London
Two Person Show, Market Place Gallery, Marazion
Two Person Show, Rainy Day Gallery, Penzance
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PUBLICATIONS
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‘Drawing Towards The End of The Century’
NSA 1996 softback
‘Art’ NSA 2002 hardback |
WORKS CURRENTLY ON SHOW
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Market Place Gallery, Marazion
Vitreous Contemporary Art, Truro |
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