From a certain perspective the art of living and the art of making become one, as indistinguishable and life affirming as breath inhaled. It is at this moment that rooms, objects, works of art and conversations resonate with a certain aura, and we are in the presence creativity manifest through life. Annette de Mestre has dedicated her life’s work to the representation of a feeling of stillness. Her paintings, heavily worked and luminous, built up on a ground of gold leaf, reference the passage of time, human relationships with place, the environment and each other, and the nature of the soul as an entity separate to the body. This exhibition at Messums West presents a selection of de Mestre’s recent paintings and works on paper, alongside sculptures created from found materials by Hugo Colville, and expertly sourced antique furniture and objet d’art, in a show inspired by their extraordinary home in rural West Wales.
De Mestre is best known for her dark-hewed, intensely spiritual paintings in oil and mixed media, depicting pilgrims or refugees in a transient state of migration, or lone figures engaged in silent contemplation. More recently, however, de Mestre’s mind has turned towards the space just beyond figuration – perhaps the sublime. In her paintings, texture becomes a language, communicating her process of creation, which can take over two years to realise a finished piece. Time is an important factor in de Mestre’s work. She has spent a lifetime searching for an elusive feeling in her art – the feeling of a world just beyond our own – the realm that the spirit inhabits before birth and after death; the place Shakespeare’s Hamlet calls ‘the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns’. Her bold shapes, reminiscent of earthly landscapes, celestial bodies, figures and vessels, emanate light; yet the source is always hidden. She plays with spatial relationships and liminal space, forever hinting at something unknown beyond, which both artist and viewer venture towards together with every brushstroke.