Eleanor Watson & Ben Bridges
at the GX Gallery, London

Priority-Seating

Eleanor Watson, Priority Seating, Oil on canvas,30 x 20 cm

Watson’s current paintings are concerned with the ergonomics of rooms which are not designed to be lived in. Working with images from a variety of sources, she uses collage to make rooms which are evocative of both the highly aspirational images of glossy interior magazines, and theatre sets. They deal in absences – leaving some objects minutely detailed and others blank. 

These are spaces in which the viewer is left to contemplate. These rooms are not comforting, yet not dramatically unnerving either. They leave an in-between space, like that of the theatre before the first act begins. However, there is no sign of respite to the stillness, the actors might never appear, and the introspection is left undisturbed.

Jelly-Moon-2000

Benjamin Bridges, Jelly Moon, Oil on acrylic panel, 25 x 20cm

Bridges would call himself a landscape painter but admits that sometimes he will omit the land element. Either through direct amendment of the painted environment, or through the insertion of artificial objects and entities he seeks to stimulate the viewer in the mystery of the unknown with questions of “What am I looking at, what is it made from, where is that and what is it for?” He states:

The paintings are on show until 26th of February. More info here