Apples and Pears Gallery

'Apples and Pears Gallery showcases work by the internationally recognised painters.'

Director: Dr Dale Holmes (University of Huddersfield)

Curator (Barnsley): Dr Dale Holmes
Curator (Glasgow): Dr Graham Lister (The Glasgow School of Art)

An ongoing curatorial project, the Apples and Pears Gallery showcases work by contemporary painters with shared interests in suburban and domestic subjects. An overarching research project initiated by Dr Dale Holmes of the University of Huddersfield, the gallery spaces in Barnsley and Glasgow hosted exhibitions of small-scale works by painters including Gary Simmonds, Bede Robinson, Lianne Mellor, as well as by Graham Lister and Dale Holmes throughout summer 2019. The Apples and Pears Gallery research project has a 3-year exhibition trajectory.

The Apples and Pears curatorial rationale is focused on the visual cues, motifs, forms and materialities of contemporary domestic and suburban spaces. Encompassing investigations into residential architectural forms, the landscaped environs of housing estates and the objects which speak of contemporary domestic life, each of the exhibitions represents practice-based research processes which specifically use painting as a methodological tool for thinking about space and place.

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This output for RADAR is focused on 2 specific exhibitions:

1) A solo exhibition of my own paintings, shown in the Barnsley space, which was curated by Dale Holmes and,
2) an exhibition of Dale Holmes' work in the Glasgow gallery space.

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Boundary Lines, (solo exhibition) by Graham Lister
Apples and Pears Gallery, Barnsley, (1st - 30th August 2019)
Curated by Dr. Dale Holmes

A painted investigation stemming from a curiosity about the visual codes and languages of suburban domestic spaces, of the geometry of boundaries, the demarcation of ownership and the consensual colour choices of the home-makers of Britain.

Boundary Lines featured new painted works focused on the repeated patterns of suburban fencing. From the ranch style to the diagonal trellis to the vertical board fence, these works foregrounded the aesthetic aspects of everyday barrier surfaces which so often go unnoticed. The paintings were not presented to elevate the status of the fences themselves, but rather functioned to push attention onto the coded transmissions which the choice of boundary fence can make. Can, for example, a fence comprised of closely aligned vertical boards indicate something specific about the owner of that property? Why might a trellis be used to separate neighbouring gardens? Issues of security, privacy and function of course come into such a discussion, but there seems to be more at work within this area of ongoing interest. To claim that this small-scale project answered any overarching questions would be inaccurate. What it did however successfully do is to allow a fertile ground for further visual and textual research to be identified.

Through the process of making the oil painted works, ideas of 'soft' lines between neighbouring plots of land and hard borders came to light. Through developing sketches and drawings for this project, in addition to the painted works, a sense that the creation of a glossary of residential barrier materials could be interesting. This points toward ongoing visual and textual research for future exhibitions in 2020 and 2021 with the Apples and Pears Gallery.

Four paintings were shown in Boundary Lines in the Barnsley gallery, with the curator selecting a suite of works which predominantly used phthalo green and terre verte -extremely common colour choices in the residential area in which gallery is situated. In the domestic gallery setting, the green tones within the works was combined with the inclusion of monstera plants in the gallery set up; allowing the works to gain a sense of 'fitting in' a domestic exhibition space.

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Domestic Set Up, (solo exhibition) by Dale Holmes
Apples and Pears Gallery, Glasgow, (1st - 30th August 2019)
Curated by Dr. Graham Lister

Domestic Set Up (solo exhibition) by Dale Holmes was shown in tandem with Boundary Lines (Barnsley), at the Glasgow space of the Apples and Pears Gallery. Dale Holmes' painting practice has, in recent times, highlighted the beauty, vibrancy and sometimes unexpected nature of contemporary still life painting.

Typical, and expected representations of fruit, ceramics, table cloths and patterned backdrops (elements which are very clearly related to a domestic setting) are seen alongside the much less 'expected' African mask, tortoise or safety razor in Holmes' work. Comfortable viewing is jarred slightly given the choice of subject matter, with the paintings at once being ever-so-slightly unusual in terms of their content, and equally being undoubtedly contemporary, given Holmes' handling of paint. Confident, rapid and repeated brushmarks are seen throughout his works, which affords the compositions a sense of impending movement, a feeling that the objects are just about to be used or moved again. A frisson of zig zags, of bold colours and limited detail allow for the traditional sense of the domestic still life to be explored through a lens of contemporary painterly modes of composition and expression.