Galleries - August 2015

across. Hesimilarly manipulates materials: his large, dense-looking ‘Grand Canyon Bordering on Gotham’ is not actually a large geode, but instead polyurethane and stone effect paint. Many of the pieces pose questions about identity, and it’s an enquiry that seems autobiographical given theartist’s age(young). Perhaps the most effective application of ‘geology’ to the history of art is thescientific analysis of paint layers, thebreakdown of tiny fragments of works understood as the sedimentary build up of artistic output. Such analysis may not always answer the questions at the heart of a painting (who painted it, why, for whom?), but it gives glimpses into the working process and thematerials, small elements that make up theidentity of theartist. In Nutri-Artifice, Gee provides similar glimpses of his developing artistic identity as it stands today. Frances Allitt beforetheart@gmail.com AUGUST 2015 GALLERIES 45 Matt Gee ‘Pollen Microbe’ C-Type Print, 2014 PUBLIC GALLERIES Highlighting exhibitions in public spaces around the UK See area listings for full details BARBICAN ART GALLERY, LONDON Aaron Koblin and Ben Tricklebank: Light Echoes. Until Sep 6. Map 27 COMPTON VERNEY, WARKS The Arts & Crafts House: Then and Now. Until Sep 13. Map 3 DULWICH PICTURE GALLERY, LONDON Ravilious. Celebrated artist Eric Ravilious. Until Aug 31. Map 14 ESTORICK COLLECTION, LONDON Fausto Pirandello. Until Sep 6. Map 27 FRUITMARKET GALLERY, EDINBURGH Phyllida Barlow: Set. Until Oct 18. C6 GUILDFORD HOUSE GALLERY, GUILDFORD International Garden Photographer of the Year. Until Sep 6. Map 12 HAYWARD GALLERY, LONDON Carsten Höller: Decision. Until Sep 6. Map 26 LEAMINGTON SPA ART GALLERY, WARKS Sir Terry Frost: A Leamington Lad. Until Oct 11. Map 3 LEIGHTON HOUSE MUSEUM, LONDON Former home and studio of Victorian artist Frederic, Lord Leighton. Map 16 NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON Take One Picture. Until Sep 21. Map 25 ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS, LONDON Eileen Cooper RA: Hide and Seek. Until Aug 23. Map 22 ROYAL CAMBRIAN ACADEMY, CONWY Annual Summer Exhibition. Until Sep 5. Map 2 SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY, EDINBURGH David Bailey. Until Oct 18. C6 SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART EDINBURGH Roy Lichtenstein: Artist Rooms. Until Jan 10. C6 SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, EDINBURGH Lee Miller And Picasso. Until Sep 6. C6 STANLEY SPENCER GALLERY, BERKS The Creative Genius of Stanley Spencer. Until Mar 20. Map 11 TATE BRITAIN, LONDON Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture for a Modern World. Until Oct 25. Map 18 TATE MODERN, LONDON Agnes Martin. Until Oct 11. Map 26 THELMA HULBERT GALLERY, HONITON Evolver Prize 2015. Until Aug 29. Map 8 12 STAR GALLERY, LONDON 1615: Power, politics and performance. Until Sep 11. Map 18 VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON What is Luxury? Until Sep 27. Map 18 CODA Between a rock . . . Nutri-Artifice is a collection of Matt Gee’s recent photographs, sculpture and installations, which are exhibited through August at Gallery 286 in London’s Earl’s Court. In it, Gee reimagines the geological features of Iceland using filters, lasers, 3D glasses and polyurethane to create a modified – synthetic – reality in search of identity. So if this exhibition gives a view of geology through art, what happens when art is understood through geology? The results are mixed. In a 1996 article, Ann Pizzorusso, a geologist by training, made the case that the ‘Madonna of the Rocks’ in London’s National Gallery was not a work of Leonardo da Vinci as previously believed. Leonardo, she argued, a student of geology as well as art, would never have made the observational errors evident in the painting’s eponymous forms. It is an intriguing argument, if slightly constrictive in its approach to artistic identity. Gee consciously avoids such literal translations of nature in his works. He plays with scale, his ‘microbe’ images presented as large wall posters, while his C-Type prints of boulders and mountains are never more than 15 cm

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDg4NDg=