ALISON WATT: BREATHING IN
Lévy Gorvy Dayan is pleased to present the exhibition Breating In by the artist Alison Watt. Watt’s paintings luxuriate in the details from portraiture that serve as encapsulations of the sitter’s character, with special emphasis on fabrics and the stories told by their creases.
May 9 - June 28, 2024
The new paintings at the gallery emerge from Watt’s ongoing study of the eighteenth-century portraitist Allan Ramsay (1713–1784)—whose work is a frequent touchstone for Watt, alongside that of Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664) and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867). Here, Watt excises props represented in Ramsay’s portraits of influential and self-possessed women of the period.
“The still life can be very intimate,” Watt has said. “And because of its close connection to us, how we view it is continually being redefined. It continues to evolve because it reflects us. So, by its very nature, it is linked to the portrait. The still life is a portrait without likeness.”
Watt borrows the Venus sheet with closer fidelity than is usual for references in her work, though here there is nothing behind Peale’s cloth. It falls as the original does and embraces its central place in the composition. Like a ghost, it appears to hang on the wall through uncanny force, delineated from the surrounding white by subtle modulations of shadow
Watt’s work engages with art history on a deep level, borrowing her referents’ techniques and subjects without the kind of direct reference that might render her engagement with it more illustrative. There is a cinematic nature to her work, even though she paints props she has excised from traditional portraiture.
The technique on display impresses, but at its base Watt’s work is conceptual. The amount of detail she lavishes on these still lifes offers its own elusive story. The objects she selects have vivacity and character. She is a poet of the voids in our lives, whose verses are written in objects of the everyday.
Watt (b. 1965, Scotland) came to prominence early in her career when she won the prestigious annual award of the National Portrait Gallery, London, in 1987. Her work has been shown at the National Gallery, London, where she also served as artist in residence; Dulwich Picture Gallery, and British Museum, London; Scottish National Portrait Gallery, National Galleries of Scotland, Royal Scottish Academy, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; and the Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence. She was awarded an OBE in 2008 and became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2017. Some of the paintings in Breathing In will be included in an upcoming exhibition at Sir John Soane’s Pitzhanger Manor in London.