An independent Edinburgh art gallery has announced details of a new exhibition featuring work by artist Kate Bentley RI RSW.
Two Worlds will be Bentley’s first solo exhibition at Morningside Gallery and includes forty new paintings from the award-winning artist, who works from her studio by the sea in south-west Scotland. The exhibition promises to be a truly striking collection of paintings, exploring two main subjects: Edinburgh as a city, and the artist’s love of gardens, whether her own, those of her imagination or the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh.
These two worlds inspire the name of the exhibition and reflect the way Kate engages with her subjects and her materials, with the interplay of the real and the imagined always present. Her location and the landscape hugely influence her subject matter and in many ways Kate is a ‘painter of life’, using traditional methods of en-plein air sessions and life drawing to create her work. Many of her garden paintings are both botanical studies and imaginative narrative works in equal measure, often with a kaleidoscopic element which fractures and distorts the flow, inviting a second look to fully take in the scene.
In her paintings of Edinburgh, the city is presented as a witness to the many stories told and lives lived, past and present. A city of beautiful gardens and breathtaking natural landmarks sitting alongside historical architecture. The mark-making in these paintings leads the eye to new places, new points of interest, taking the viewer on a journey which feels like an adventure; both expansive and immensely satisfying.
Eileadh Swan, director of Morningside Gallery said: “We’re absolutely delighted to be introducing our first solo exhibition of Kate Bentley’s paintings, and to welcome her to the gallery on Friday 2 May, for a Private View ahead of the exhibition launch the following day. It’s a truly dazzling collection of work which really highlights Kate’s fearless experimentation and urge to tear up the rule book, giving her paintings a completely new dimension.”
Commenting on the exhibition, Kate Bentley RI RSW said: “My son moved to Edinburgh a few years ago which gave me reason to visit more often. There is something comfortable and un-threatening about the town; the hills and proximity of the sea are familiar to me and the architecture, history and gardens are all subject areas that I find inspiring. There is a sense of the many lives that have lived here, and the various epochs that the city has endured and been shaped by.”
Based at Church Hill in Morningside, the gallery will have 40 new paintings in the exhibition, which can also be viewed online and toured as a virtual exhibition for anyone who is unable to make it to Edinburgh.
The exhibition will run in the gallery until Sunday 18 May, and is open to the public.
