ARTS|EVENTS




Wearing Coats is an exhibition of lyrical abstract paintings accompanied by monochromatic collage prints.
In 2014 Gail was drawn to the beauty of the peeling hulls of derelict fishing boats found in a field above the small seaside village of Moeraki.
The layered and broken surfaces of these retired vessels spoke of their many trips out to sea and their quieter times of rejuvenation and repair. They made the artist think of all the crews who had spent their working lives aboard, each boat and crew isolated together in one of nature’s most beautiful and mercurial environments.
The worn hulls had a surprising complexity of texture and colour, too, so using the Plimsoll lines as a horizon around which to compose images of landscapes and seascapes, Gail took a series of photos. It was from these that the paintings were created.
The Wearing Coats collection is on wooden board or aluminum sheeting using enamel paint to give vibrancy and resilience.
The steady horizon is intended to form a foundation of peace and stability in each work, and the colours and shapes create the work’s rhythm. The mark-making and layering, sanding back and covering-over are reflective of the many hands that have worked on these boats, of the accidental spills, the patches, and the continual cycle of wear and maintenance over time, and in this way are true to each hull’s experience. At the same time the paintings aim to evoke the vast emptiness of the world in which the boats were used.
Each of the prints in this exhibition is of a collage created during Gail’s study at Canterbury University. The collages were made from original photographs, taken at Birdlings Flat, which were either painted into and/or combined with original handmade intaglio prints. These works set out to suggest the space and emptiness of the area, so in that sense they complement the hull paintings while providing an obvious contrast with their stillness and absence of colour.
The essence of all of the images in this exhibition is simplicity and direct emotion. The artist hopes viewers enjoy finding themselves somewhere in these works.
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Gail Batchelor is a Christchurch-based contemporary artist focusing on painting, printmaking and photography. She has been exhibiting and selling since 2004 and is a Fine Arts Graduate from Canterbury University. Her work has an intuitive and spiritual quality derived from her deep interest in Eastern art and philosophy. Where possible Gail incorporates Eastern ideas of space and harmony in her work.















