Glow At Hamilton Gallery, Installation Shot, 2016

Artist and Curator, Andy Parsons opened my solo exhibition at Hamilton Gallery. I felt that he really understood my work and what I am trying to achieve. Here is a copy of his opening speech:

” I am delighted to introduce Emma Stroude’s new exhibition ‘Glow’, to you tonight.

When Emma asked me to say a few words I jumped at the chance because I think Emma is doing something very new and exciting with her work.

I think Emma’s work asserts the fact that painting has a unique power and vitality. The medium is rooted in history and yet in the right hands it can do things which are completely contemporary and new.

The pictures in this exhibition do something very interesting in relation to time. They take the split second of a photographic image, and then use the medium of painting to stretch and expand it into something altogether different.

This ‘painted’ time is more open, and more meditative.

The paintings also do something very interesting in relation to movement. They have many different kinds of movement in them: the blurring of things seen by the side of the road, the unstoppable movement of wind, rain and clouds and the movement of people through the environment.

The way that Emma has manipulated time and the movement in these paintings, makes looking at them an experience which is very human, an experience which is closer to our perception than any photographic image can be.

In these paintings Emma captures fleeting moments and looks at them really, really intensely. The process brings out the unfamiliar in the familiar and everyday.

When you see lampposts, street signs and tarmac in these paintings you are firmly rooted in the present day. But the paintings depict the timelessness of the landscape, and the power of nature, alongside the evidence of human activity.

The paintings seem to celebrate the world as it is, in all it’s complexity. They elevate scenes we all might encounter on the way back from the shops or the school run into things which are profound and beautiful.

And speaking of celebration, the paintings celebrate the act of painting itself. Emma’s paintings share a delight in the medium of paint, the textures, brushstrokes and unique physicality that the medium has.

So, I am delighted to open the Exhibition and to congratulate Emma on her great work.”

Andy Parsons 2016