John Blackburn & Margaret Lovell

Overview

Art is often a barometer of its time, and the fraught conditions of recent years have informed the content and mood of the work of many artists, including that of the two veteran British abstractionists shown in this exhibition. In her adopted country of New Zealand, sculptor Margaret Lovell reacted to global uncertainties with what she came to realise was a subconscious need to simplify, to pare down her forms in a meditative process in which clarity and strength were constant watchwords. In contrast, during sustained periods of lockdown in both Auckland and at his English home, John Blackburn, always a highly physical painter, felt impelled to work with even greater rawness and immediacy. On the face of it then, divergent energies appear to be operating here, though in fact a closer examination reveals that these artists have much in common.

Ian Massey, February 2022