CCA Galleries International are delighted to be championing the work of two up and coming artists for our 2016 Christmas Exhibition. Nicola Godden and Neil Canning will be in Jersey for the first time to launch the show.
Neil Canning’s explosive abstracts in oil use colour as a means of communication. His work is inspired by landscape – the Cornish coastline, as well as urban landscapes in New York and Hong Kong. Neil has exhibited extensively in the UK, including RA’s Summer Show and Tate St Ives.
The art critic, Mel Gooding wrote ‘Neil Canning is an artist who is not afraid to experiment and change, to move into and occupy new territories of expression. …His art is reaching for something other than a brilliant reflection of the phenomenal world. He is discovering thrilling analogies to the flow and flux within things. His recent works presents us with signs and equivalents of the world’s ceaseless variegation, the light and colour, shine, shimmer and shadow that register its invisible energies, he is catching in the lightning flash of line and quick splash and splatter the suddenness of unexpected natural events.’
Nicola Godden’s study of the human figure led to her first commission of the Hammersmith Man figure back in 1988. Her more recent series on Icarus led to a commission for the London Olympics. Nicola’s tactile, spontaneous bronze figures are initially made in clay or plaster, before being cast in bronze. She enjoys the speed this allows her to work. We will be showing a number of Nicola’s Icarus pieces alongside her series of Eve and Vol d’Etincelle.
Nicola says of the Icarus pieces: ‘Over the last few years I have been excited by the mythological figure of Icarus and have produced a series of ‘Icarus’ pieces. These ideas began when I was learning how to fly (in an Ikarus C42 fixed wing microlight) and the combination of man and wings is so compelling that I can’t see an end to this period.’
Both artists are in Jersey for the first time over the exhibition launch to talk about their work. The exhibition is open until Christmas, alongside work from other artists we publish and represent, such as Lucy Farley, Damien Hurst, Sir Peter Blake, John Hoyland and Nic Fiddian-Green.
Gallery Director of CCA Galleries International, Sasha Gibb says ‘We’re delighted to be working with Nicola and Neil and to be bringing their work to a Jersey audience for the very first time.’
