CANDIDA STEVENS, GALLERIST

Tell us about your gallery...

We specialise in contemporary painting and textile-based art. We work with artists whose integrity we admire and whose skill and determination we aspire to emulate. While trying to stay current we also try to support our gallery artists through changing times, as fashions come and go, and demands change. While there has always been an enjoyable curatorial element to the gallery, solo shows now form the major part of our program.

Who is on display at the moment?

We currently have a solo show by Celia Cook called Ostinato. Ostinato is a musical term that refers to the repetition of a phrase, again and again within a composition, but different each time. The series of 38 unique woodcuts are precisely this, a series of one-off pieces developed from the same core, the same range of blocks, but re-inked every time using a broad range of colours. It is a sophisticated range of works. [Show runs until June 4].

Anything exciting coming up?

Yes, lots! We have our first gallery solo show coming up in June for Kerry Harding, an artist based in North Cornwall whose work echoes the Romanticism of Caspar David Friedrich through similar exploration of the extremes of light. This lends her works their metaphysical quality and an element of the photographically inspired abstraction of Gerhart Richter’s landscapes. In the autumn we are looking forward to working with artists who were born in the UK but now live and work on the other side of the world, particularly Australia and Canada, in an exciting mixed show called place - displace looking at the unavoidable significance of one’s origins.

What can we expect to see at BAF 2022?

We will be showing work by five female artists in their 50s, 60s and 70s. This is not intended as a sexist or ageist curation, but a look at some excellent work by some artists who were perhaps a little overlooked earlier in their careers and broadly looks at the question of ‘Who are we, and what is our purpose?’

Look out for a piece called Visual Invisibility by Irene Lees, a precisely drawn full length burka made with one continuous line, but where the eyes should be there is empty space. This relates to a touching personal experience had by the artist (which is worth coming to ask us about). Also Alice Kettle shows a new piece, Daphne, who in Greek mythology became the unwilling object of the infatuation of Apollo and was chased against her wishes.

The artists are Pippa Blake, Kerry Harding, Alice Kettle, Irene Lees and Olivia Stanton. I have always thought of the British Art Fair to be about mature, experienced, established artists, so this is what we are bringing.

What's your favourite public gallery in the UK?

It’s not an original answer I’m afraid, the one I love to take my children and their friends to is the Tate Modern. There you can discover an artwork made from anything from moving light, to rope, to stone, to fog, to paint… but you nearly always discover something new. It helps broaden the understanding of what art can be.

If you were cast away, which single artwork would you want as company on your desert island?

After living in Florence for six months, the works that stayed with me, out of everything there was on offer, were Michelangelo’s Slaves. The way they emerge from the marble, only partially formed, as if he could see them in there, and was just trying to help them out, is a marvel. Perhaps I would try to create my own versions from the materials to hand, or perhaps just try to fathom what he might see next emerging from the marble.

Candida Stevens Gallery
12 Northgate, Chichester
PO19 1BA

Candida will be exhibiting at the British Art Fair.