Oliver Akers Douglas
& Emily Gregory-Smith
AT ART LONDON

Thursday 7th October – Monday 11th October, 2010

Royal Hospital, Chelsea, London

Opening times
11am – 8pm

Telephone number during the show: 07957 232 353

OLIVER AKERS DOUGLAS

Oliver has developed his own very original take on portraying the ‘Great British Landscape’. He is obsessed with the painterly effects of the surface of his work, and the depth of the media gives tremendous power to the image. Described as ‘one of the foremost landscape painters of his generation’ by the critic Matthew Dennison, Oliver has established a strong reputation.

Mainly self taught, and working in a landscape tradition stemming from Constable, Oliver started exhibiting in 2003 with his first Solo show at the Coningsby Gallery. Since then he has had three sell-out one man shows in Dover Street, London with Josie Eastwood Fine Art. Akers Douglas has exhibited at The Royal Academy Summer Show, and the Jerwood Foundation have recently acquired a painting for their collection. Oliver has also undertaken many private commissions.

“The collection of paintings on show at Art London is a response to landscape, season and weather. I have been interested in the quality of the land itself, in particular, chalk downland and its characteristic colour, topography and climate. Virtually all the paintings in this collection bear witness in some way to chalk – be it in the flashes revealed through newly planted crops, in the extreme cloud patterns bubbling over steep hills, in its streams, quarries, agriculture and of course in the wonderful vistas it provides.”

OAD Aug 2010

EMILY GREGORY-SMITH

Born in 1978, trained at Aberystwyth, Emily has for many years had a studio near the Welsh coastline. Since leaving college Emily has exhibited widely and established a strong reputation. In 2008 Emily’s work was selected by Anita Klein for The Discerning Eye Exhibition, an annual showcase of the art critic’s selection of talent. In 2009 The Financial Times also tipped her as a young artist to follow. She has been a firm gallery favourite since 2006.

“This work has been inspired primarily by the coastal and estuary landscapes of Cardigan Bay, Pembrokeshire, and the Dyfi valley north of Aberystwyth. What is important in my work is the relationship of land to sky, light and space, and the sensory experience of place. The presence of water seems to be again a key element, for its shifting movements, incessantly covering land and receding again.

Like my paintbrush and knife applying paint and scraping back again, there's a painterly delight at this sky-reflective, ever changing entity. Each painting develops intuitively, almost taking its own direction at times, requiring its own compositional strength and abstract coherence. Recently, bolder use of colour and mark making have become more important, creating an image that has vigour and redolent meaning.”

E G-S, Aug 10