About the exhibition
In 2017 Bridget Sterling offered me the opportunity to hang a solo show at her Bath Contemporary gallery, just above Queens Square in the heart of the Georgian City. The building has a long history of continuous use as a gallery in Bath, in part because it incorporates a fabulous purpose built room behind the main frontage, occupying what must have originally been the garden, that features an amazing glazed roof light. In my youth I visited the gallery regularly, when I think it was owned by Beardsmore.
The exhibtion provided a great opportunity to show a strong collection of recent work, including my Flow 8VO digital screen art, displayed on a wall mounted 42” screen. The work, which experiments with adding time, motion and illumintation to the drawings, would be equally well suited to projection, or video wall display, in a larger circulation space.
Bridget’s project has recently rebranded as Axle Arts, and continues to exhibit work in and around Bath.
Work in situ
Bath Contemporary, press release
Chuck Elliott overlaps the precision and order of symmetrical geometry with mesmerizing digitally drawn non-repeating patterns. He explores notions of contemporary drawing using a high end computing system and the latest digital drawing tools. His vibrant prints are energetic yet rhythmically soothing; pools of colour ripple, whilst smooth chromatic ribbons flow with electronic clarity, sheening like a lacquered metallic surface. There is reference to psychedelia in the visual indulgence of Elliott’s work, but it is rooted intellectually by his meticulous attention to detail and the mathematical application of numeric formulae and 3D simulation programmes.
The intensity of Elliott’s work offers a dynamic visual aesthetic for both modern and classical settings. The sense of free-flowing vitality, under-layered with an appealing sense of order, replicates the familiarity of architectural rhythm and asymmetrical structures found within the natural world. Elliott’s work connects us with energies which govern the geometry of life, whilst plugging into the processes which expand the reaches of contemporary culture. There is also a departure from traditional forms of framing. Elliott will occasionally frame his printed work behind glass, yet the majority sits between two plates of Perspex, with the front mounting as a clear, high-grade, UV filter. Sitting without a border, the resulting work has an extremely crisp and highly durable finish.
Through digital imagery Elliott questions what drawing can be. His experimental curiosity has led to new work with moving images and the idea of ‘digital fluency’. This also calls into question notions of ownership, as this artwork exists as a cache of data rather than a physical object. It has multiple options for display, from domestic projectors and idle widescreen televisions to large multi-screens in corporate spaces.
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Link here to read the full text ⟶
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Bridget Sterling, Bath Contemporary, March 2017
Bath Life feature
Link to exhibited works
