Acacia

Acacia,
3 drawings, charcoal & chalk pastel, 120 x 60cm, 2014

a dream within a dream



Claudia Boese / Appearance (Anschein)  2014 oil on assembled canvas and board  25x30cm, photo: Douglas Atfield

A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM 15th May / 18.00 - 21.00 @ Bankley Studios & Gallery
Karl Bielik, Claudia Boese, Valerie Brennan,  Sarah McNulty, Sophie Rees, Melanie Russell,  Sabine Tress

"Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?"

Edgar Allan Poe

The exhibition takes its title from a work by Sabine Tress, ‘A dream within a dream’, 2014. The Edgar Allan Poe poem which it shares the same name with is a poem about trying to  distinguish between reality and fantasy.

In a similar way to dreaming, the activity of abstract painting often treads the line between reality and fantasy, sometimes it is hard to separate the two from each other. The unconscious state  of dreaming offers us access to different memories and ideas, whilst in painting we can often  look back at created paintings and realise that something has been included in the work from  a previous memory.

The fully immersive activity of creating an abstract painting, with the full involvement, and the enjoyment of the process can create a kind of flow. This cognitive flow is a well accepted an idea proposed by  Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

Cognitive flow suggests that some activities creates an energized focus, and results in all your attention being put into the task at hand with no more attention being left for anything else.  There is a merging of action and awareness as well as improvement of performance which results in a intrinsically rewarding experience.

The focus of flow can offer clear goals and direction which in turn offers great feedback, giving the painter the feeling that their actions matter and have a real effect on the painting and world.

A Dream within a Dream continues a thread of Pluspace exhibitions, such as Painted Thought (2014), Without an Edge there is no Middle (2013), Form / Function (2013) and Meditations (2013), that examines contemporary painting.

Continues
Every Saturday / 12.30 - 17.30
17th May - 7th June

Sales and information please contact matthew@pluspace.com

sweet little lies

triptych, oil & spray paint on mdf, each 25 x 22cm, 2014