Overview
Flowers Gallery is pleased to present Mind's Eye, an exhibition of paintings by Terry Frost (1915-2003) and Carol Robertson (b.1955). This exhibition explores a dialogue between each artist’s distinctive use of colour and shape, in particular their use of the circle. “We share a common interest in all things celestial, all things to do with the heavens: the sun the moon, the stars, the circadian rhythm. I think my use of the circle and his use of the circle often coincide,” says Robertson.
Frost and Robertson first met in Cardiff in the late 1970s when Robertson was a student, introduced by her friend and mentor Adrian Heath, with whom Frost had been interned at a German prisoner of war camp during the Second World War.
Terry Frost was renowned for his direct and exuberant handling of colour, which was closely related to the experience of landscape. Carol Robertson describes Frost's painting style as fast, energetic and spontaneous, working freehand, contrasting with Robertson's precise method of drawing.
Connecting the majority of works in the show is the shared use of black as a defining colour, which in both instances is mixed from other colours. As Robertson describes, "It offsets and outlines lighter or brighter colours very powerfully. It can inhabit the psychological darkness, but it sets light and colour free around it. It's colours’ partner. I, like Terry, mix many blacks from other colours, in my own case particularly from blues and purples. Black has endless nuanced permutations. It’s never just black.”
"It’s easy to see the arcs and colour of his earlier work through the Cornish landscape and seascape. That said, the colour in landscape and nature affects me profoundly, though in a less primary way. My colour has more nuance, more tone and hue. Strikingly our modus operandi couldn’t be more different. Terry worked quickly, energetically, spontaneously, very instinctively and freely. His touch is expressive and physical. I work slowly, in a meditative and often meticulous manner: my geometry is hard edged and drawn with compass or ruler. His is often freehand…Like Terry I use colour subjectively and intuitively but I frequently modulate it, in order to get exactly the tone and feel I’m looking for. I’m looking for emotional visual impact, just like he is, but it’s achieved very differently." - Carol Robertson
