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BBC South East - May, 9

BBC South East conducted  an interview Patrick at The Strand Gallery space on Monday 9 May at 11am. Robin Gibson spoke with Patrick about the exhibition/work and the inspiration behind it all. Robin also covered Patrick’s thoughts on the creative community in Medway and all of the talent coming out of Kent.

You can view the interview on the BBC South East website here from 18 mins into the broadcast.

For more information, or to arrange an interview or press tour of the exhibition, please email patrickbutlerart@westgatecomms.com

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A word of thanks...

All large exhibitions can be difficult to put on, at the outset they look easy, but as they get closer the enormity of the task becomes evident.

I have been lucky I’ve been surrounded by excellent professionals and friends who are professionals in a number of disciplines. There is no hierarchy to those I need to thank, and any omissions are down to my poor memory.

My wife Jan Who has made it all possible through her belief in me and her desire to see me make full use of my studio across the road !! Thank you love!

Hannah Shepheard - Daughter 

Kate Silver - Daughter

Ji Ang - Model and Friend 

Lilly Brothers - Model and Friend 

Nako Tokuda - Model and Friend 

Jodie Freiter - Model and Friend 

Hayley Embleton, Short Stop Social - Social Media and Website 

Mia Terry-Duffield - PA computer Wiz-kid 

Alice Baker, Westgate Communications - PR  

Rebecca Dustan, Westgate Communications - PR 

Zoe Pozo - Graphic Designer 

Gary Bassett - Artist/Critic/Friend 

Adam Piper - Artist/Critic/Friend 

John Terry - Artist/Critic/Friend, Problem Solving 

Adam W. - Beautiful Frames 

Doug and Greg Davies - Photography/Editing 

Verity and Lucy - The Strand Gallery 

Steve Lowe -  Help and Professional Advice 

Billy Childish -  Help and Professional Advice 

Kim Norman Cranfield-  Camera Use and Legend 

Dean Fragile  - Management Xylaroo 

Coco and Holly - Xylaroo 

Management Team and PR - Xylaroo Ian Decoration and More

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Secrets! at The Strand Gallery - Official Press Release

Medway-based artist Patrick Butler is holding an exhibition of his latest artwork, entitled Secrets!, at the Strand Gallery in Central London from 9 - 15 May, 2016.

Along with life-long friend and renowned Medway artist Billy Childish, Patrick is part of the eclectic mix of painters, poets, musicians and artists that make up the rich art community of the Medway towns in Kent. This group has been receiving acclaim and attention in recent years and Patrick’s new collection is set to continue this trend.

In his new collection, Patrick explores the complexities of what makes us human and individual. Drawing on Gestalt effects, his paintings explore the female form, and although confrontational, are not intended to shock. They address the confrontation of self, the perception of self and the secrets that lie beneath.

Fascinated by secrets and with the realisation that realism and naturalism can be very misleading, Secrets! narrates a series of experiences that Patrick has bought to life through a complex use of layering paint with Sgraffito, amongst other impactful techniques.

Commenting on the exhibition, Patrick Butler said: “My latest collection is about the secrets behind our façades. My paintings consider what is public and what is private, about what is presented to the world and what is hidden. The artwork ultimately looks at how we are perceived – an interesting concept particularly in this age of ‘the selfie’ when more and more people are becoming obsessed with the superficial.

 “These insights came from the long periods of time I spend with each subject I paint and this ensures that I can capture each individual’s complex layers and their secrets.”

A private viewing with Patrick Butler will take place on Thursday 12th May, 6-8pm at The Strand Gallery, London. 

The event will also feature an exclusive music set from up and coming young band Xylaroo, a new duo from Papua New Guineau enjoying rave reviews from the music press with their fresh dulcet harmonies. There are many synergies between Xylaroo and the Secrets collection, with the band’s unmistakably beautiful songs often dealing with a variety of complex and hidden issues.

All paintings will be available for purchase at the exhibition.  

For more information or to request an invitation contact Alice Baker or Rebecca Dunstan at Westgate Communications on 01732 779087 or by emailing: firstname@westgatecomms.com

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Sketchbook notes.

Hours of work gone, but for these paintings it has to be. Exacting drawings of the model are produced in an attempt to embody one or more of the secrets they have. This is often very difficult and there is no direct correspondence. However there is no intent to speak the paintings with words. This is the foundation for all that follows. All the structures, colour, tonal values and the gestural expressive marks. Then on complex of marks that often end in fragmentation but a fragmentation where each element covers or carries major aspects of the self.

Friends have said, “Why do you produce such exacting, expressive drawings only to cover them up with layers of paint, people looking cannot see them”. True, but I know they are there and they are the starting point for all that follows. Sometimes the figures or elements of the figure reappear in a different form, often playing a major role in the finished work. 

The young women I have been working with come from different cultures, one Chinese, 2 English and one Japanese. They have very different ways of looking at themselves, their cultures, our culture, to others and of dealing with the complex of secrets that makes them unique. They are highly professional and I am very lucky to work with them.

There is however a considerable overlap when it comes to the nature of their secrets, fears, hopes and desires. I am making paintings that have formal elements yet are evocative and expressive. Paintings that convey a range of moods and feelings, yet they can be read. The process is overt, layer upon layer. However they do not give up their secrets easily. Sometimes they have mesmeric qualities with the paint “dancing” across the surface only to be constrained by the imposition of yet another layer or range of marks.

The painting is finished when I can go no further.

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My painting...

When I was a student at Cheltenham and Birmingham, there was pop art and ‘real art’, ‘real painting’.  The coolness of post painterly abstraction was giving way to the disinterested Kautian aesthetic in which the world of perception, the world of art and history had no place in painting.  Of even greater concern there was no place for the hand-writing of the Artist, no place for personal expression.

Although I found the philosophy that underpinned these ideas about painting highly questionable, they did have a profound and direct influence on my painting.

Unlike the purist for whom Ad Reinhardt was God, I moved towards systems painting.  No brush strokes, a clear system, but results that had metaphysical overtones.  Highly complex colour networks.  The preconceptions born of this period stayed with me a guiding force for at least the next 20 years.  Reference to the world of experience was excluded but I kept drawing, particularly from the figure.  Teaching also had a big impact on me because I had to design programmes that were teachable, that were developmental, the vast majority were empirical and involved perception and the development of skills.  Then one day in the late 1980’s I realised that I could do as I wished – the ‘God’ of art would let me!

I started working from landscapes and the figure, the landscape as the figure, the figure as the landscape.  The influence of film, of time, duration and framing became very important, but the finished works disguised their references; they remained secret and formal concerns and expressive painterly qualities took over.

The realisation at the beginning of the 20th century that ‘reality’ went beyond direct perception, the Cubists, Futurists, Freud, the atom, music and the Vienna circle of philosophers all demonstrated realities beyond perception.

These ideas have had a profound effect on my thinking and painting.  Semiology has also had a major influence on my thinking not just as an analytical tool but also as a reviewing tool, not that I have had much success in this area.

I became fascinated by secrets and the realisation that realism and naturalism are very misleading.  The kind of ‘aspect seeing’ Wittgenstein talked about, has perhaps, had the greatest impacts.

I realised that what I was trying to paint was as impossible as the Futurists or Cubists if you tried to speak the paintings in words.

I talked to all the models I worked with and they all gave their time to model for me and talk at length about themselves, how they thought they were seen in different contexts and how they would like to be seen. They also talked about what they thought was not seen, what could never be known and what was very important to them, yet secret.  They were all involved and approving of me trying to paint this complex of perceptions!

I think for the first time I felt these paintings were mine without any overt eclecticism.  My paintings are now made up of complex layers of paint with scrafito, but all start with life studies and a highly representational image on the canvas. This no way explains what it is like to experience them!  

I’m not sure I would be painting as I am if it were not for the rich art life of the Medway towns.  Painters, poets and musicians all make this a good place to be, a place to share ideas, to talk and enjoy good company.  Watching the careers of friends like Billy Childish and Billy Lewis, amongst others, develop, has been great and very enriching.

Medway is a rich environment, historically and culturally, more than anything Medway is the people.

I seem to have been so many places with my painting over the years.  Now I am making paintings that are demanding yet very enjoyable to work on.  Each one makes new demands, formal and expressive. The quality of the surface, the relationship between the layers opaque or grazed is very important.  

People may feel deconstruction is the way in but I think not. The immediate impact and the title are the starting points for me, then you start to see.

Into the fire but a highly constructed fire.

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