Exhibition to shine a light into the shadows
New paintings by Narbi Price
Award-winning artist Narbi Price is to mount his first solo exhibition since 2020 at the Queen’s Hall Arts Centre, Hexham.
With the title Shadow on the Things You Know, it will feature new paintings of anonymous sites loaded with cultural significance.
“Unpeopled locations offer the opportunity to wonder and wander through shifting landscapes, of pilgrimage to some and indifference to others,” we are told by the venue.
“History and time is encoded into the making of the paintings and the deeper time and resonances they evoke.”
This is familiar territory for the Hartlepool-born artist who for years has expressed his fascination for places whose cultural significance is not explained by a plaque.
An exhibition at the Vane gallery (then in Newcastle) in 2017 featured paintings of two anonymous metal gates which guarded the spot where Steptoe and Son had their scrapyard in the 1960s TV sitcom.
Who knew?
Narbi knew. He’d done his research.
His meticulously rendered paintings, Untitled Yard Painting (Albert) and Untitled Yard Painting (Harold), recalled the father and son characters played by Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett.
Another painting, Untitled Flowers Painting (DB), showed the spot where David Bowie is seen standing on the cover of his 1972 album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars – but covered in bouquets left by fans after his death.
The use of ‘Untitled’ is a Narbi Price trope, adding a further layer of mystery to paintings which generally do have titles.
Other paintings have shown reclaimed or derelict sites formerly associated with coalmining – or, during the pandemic, public benches rendered out of bounds by reams of red and white tape.
A body of paintings showing former mining sites in County Durham was exhibited widely last year as Going Back Brockens, a collaboration with writer Mark Hudson.
Of this new exhibition, Narbi says: “These paintings are linked by a sense of searching, for connection, for history, for belonging.
“They depict sites which have borne witness to momentous events and unknowable ones.
“In some ways, they’re about me pursuing something I know I’ll never catch; when I get there it’s already gone and I knew it would be.
“They’re memories, whispers and stories, made with colours, smudges and smears.”
Narbi Price – actually Dr Narbi Price - has twice been North East artist of the year (at the North East Culture Awards) and is the current holder.
He is chair of Contemporary British Painting and an associate lecturer at Newcastle University, where he studied for his PhD, focusing on the Ashington Group of artists of whose paintings he is a trustee.
Dr Dominic Smith, visual art manager at the Queen’s Hall, described Narbi as “an artist whose practice is rooted in curiosity, research and a deep commitment to painting”.
And he added: “Presenting his work at Queen’s Hall is an important moment, bringing a nationally recognised artist into a community-focused space where ideas, making and conversation are shared.
“This exhibition reflects our commitment to supporting contemporary arts practice that remains open, generous and accessible to our audiences.”
The exhibition will open on March 7 and run until May 30. Admission will be free and the Queen’s Hall, on Beaumont Street, Hexham, is open Monday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm.
Thanks David, great write up!