Contemporary Scottish artist Serena Rowe has opened an exhibition in London to mark the centenary of the birth of Joan Eardley – one of Scotland’s most popular 20th-century artists.
Eardley’s powerful and expressive paintings – many inspired by her days in Catterline – transformed her everyday surroundings. During her lifetime, she was considered a member of the post-war British avant-garde, who portrayed the realities of life in the mid-2oth century.
Serena Rowe – painter of landscapes, interiors, and still lifes – was influenced by Joan Eardley and is currently showing a new body of paintings created from a dialogue with Eardley’s work.
The exhibition focuses on Eardley’s “sensitivity and passion”.
While Eardley started off by painting children playing games in tenement doorways in Glasgow, the artist fell in love with Aberdeenshire coastal village Catterline when she came up to Aberdeen to exhibit her work.
She returned to the north-east many times until she started renting a cottage in Catterline where she painted the coast, the picturesque village and produced a range of landscapes.
Joan Eardley painted with urgency as if her life depended on it
Serena thinks Eardley “painted with intensity and urgency as if her life depended on it.”.
Like the Scottish artist, Serena’s work has always been inspired by the natural world and observation. Her paintings exude an innate love of paint as well as the act of painting.
After Serena graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2000, she received atelier-style training at Florence Academy of Art. She was awarded the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts Exhibition Award in 2004 which led to her first solo show at the Kelly Gallery in Glasgow the following year.
During the Covid-19 lockdowns, Serena began to look more intensely at Eardley’s Wave paintings – her turbulent depictions of the North Sea. What fascinated Serena was how Eardley was able to use the sea as a vehicle to showcase her emotions.
Meditating on this, the works installed in Serena’s exhibition titled Between Light and Nowhere reveals the London-based artist’s difficult and uncomfortable feelings experienced during lockdown. While some are a lament, others speak of hope, comfort and resilience too.
Serena Rowe’s exhibition Between Light and Nowhere can be seen until Saturday October 16 at 155A Gallery on Lordship Lane in London. Alongside the exhibition of works, there are also films and selected poetry readings.
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