Page 6 - Clive Head

Flee to Banbury Cross oil on canvas 57” x 49”
In 2010, Head’s exhibition at the National Gallery broke attendance records. Although invented, his landscapes of London were a reflection of the city and its people. Since then, he has often returned to the same locations from which to begin new explorations. The bridges that cross the Thames, railway stations, tube journeys, cafes and hotel bedrooms continue to fuel his investigations in the studio. What unites all this work is a relentless existential enquiry, the nature of his own being and by extension, the nature of all of us as human beings. An art that centres us within a rich visual spectacle of all that we might see is now coloured by our histories, our thoughts, fears and all we might want to touch. Head is willing to do whatever is needed to get closer, rejecting any stylistic continuity in his painting, brand labelling and distinctions between realism, figuration and abstraction. Flee to Banbury Cross and Cygnes Gris began with time spent in Vauxhall on the south bank of the Thames. Calder’s Ascension returned Head to Victoria Railway Station, which often featured in his realist work.
Much as Flee to Banbury Cross presents the busyness of city life, its title also suggests escape. The morphic transitions of the central figure into animal heads and mythical creatures might suggest the ancient world, but through its pastel colouring and playful imagery of maidens and cock- horses, Head is leading us elsewhere, and into the world of English nursery rhymes from his early years.
Cygnes Gris oil on canvas 46” x 34”
Standing at the entrance to Vauxhall Tube Station, Head photographed people coming and going, some pausing to listen to a busker playing the guitar Though these ordinary events can be traced in the painting Cygnes Gris, the extraordinary transitions into cats, chickens and the looping shapes of a swan’s neck have a different origin. Head talks of the need to keep the painting in pace with experience, and not to illustrate the subject on which it begins. He lives in the countryside surrounded with wildlife and farm animals. His wife keeps hens, and the house is home to many cats. But he warns of trying to over explain the
motifs and narratives in his paintings. He has referred to the myth of Leda and the Swan in other works, though this is just as likely to come from his love of Matisse who was obsessed with this motif as the ancient world. He is more certain about the reference to Gris. It may be a grey swan, a grey and yellow painting, but the head to the centre-right, in profile and looking straight out reminded him of the rectilinear cubism of Juan Gris.
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