Tim Hemington

White Paintings: Oil on MDF 1998-2001.

"Tim Hemington’s white monochrome works recall Modernist painting of the sixties however they transgress the ultimate limits imposed by Greenberg that Modernist painting “can be pushed back indefinitely before a picture stops being a picture and turns into an arbitrary object”. The flat monochrome gives way to a more challenging expression of art, an art which is aware of the debates concerning the art of the 1960’s and 70’s that still continue today. Bianca Maria Polledro

Ejected Surfaces & Plinth Paintings: Mixed Media, 2001-2003.

Theatricality is exaggerated by using additional objects such as medical clamps and incorporating plinths to create an actual dialogue between painting and sculpture. The relationship between painting and the object, Hemington suggests, is not unlike the relationship between stage and audience. For the Plinth Paintings the surfaces of the paintings were actually removed and laid to rest on the plinths. In 2003 Tim Hemington and Japanese artist Hiroko Nakao collaborated on a series of works which were exhibited at the Andrew Mummery Gallery in London during the same year. Anthony Thomas

Cranes: Oil on paper, board & plinths 2008

Time, alteration and change are important themes for Hemington that he addresses in much of his work and the investment of time fused with the symbolism of the origami crane endow these objects with a sense of aura. The forms often resemble spines. The spine is literally the core or foundation and therefore vulnerable to injury and incurring death. The reference to painting is important. The origami is made of paper, which is a conventional drawing/painting support, and when covered in paint could be considered a replacement for the conventional canvas support used in painting. The monochrome works reference the debate surrounding monochrome self-reflexive painting and the origami cranes, that could be considered a kind of three-dimensional collage, are used to unify the painting surface and create a grid. Anthony Thomas