Eleanor May Watson | Another Window Opens

Presented by Hannah Payne Art

Hannah Payne Art presents ‘Another Window Opens’ a solo exhibition of new paintings by British contemporary artist Eleanor May Watson, across two locations in Oxford’s renowned North Parade Avenue this September. The exhibition includes a series of intimate new paintings depicting scenes of domestic life, capturing the everyday through the lens of a daydream to contemplate the space between longing and belonging.

The artist collects images of interior spaces as sources of inspiration, including collaged elements from her own photographs layered and folded into compositions to offer personal reflection for paintings created in her studio. Observing notions of embodiment, scenes frame moments of light upon inanimate objects; a yellowish glow from a lamp illuminates a vessel on a table setting, as fragments of an image dissolve into dream-like abstraction.

For this new body of work, Watson has introduced a process of working upon a hand-painted frieze in the studio, acting as a backdrop of visual notes for the artist to refer to continually whilst painting. Watson works in layers of mediums onto gesso-finished surfaces, first with washes of colour in acrylic and gouache, followed by thick, slicks of oil paint. Large areas of the surface are painted ‘wet on wet’ creating a lively interwoven and slippery collage of gesture, colour and description. 

Eleanor May Watson refers to the writing of Virginia Woolf, citing Woolf’s experimental 1931 novel The Waves and its painterly descriptions as a recent source of inspiration:

'Now, too, the rising sun came in at the window, touching the red-edged curtain, and began to bring out circles and lines. Now in the growing light its whiteness settled in the plate; the blade condensed its gleam. Chairs and cupboards loomed behind so that though each was separate they seemed inextricably involved. The looking-glass whitened its pool upon the wall. The real flower on the window-sill was attended by a phantom flower. Yet the phantom was part of the flower, for when a bud broke free the paler flower in the glass opened a bud too.’ (Excerpt from The Waves, Virginia Woolf, 1930)

In Another Window Opens, Watson explores the concept of knowing unreality within painting: “These paintings (and to some extent all paintings) are like phantoms, unreal, beguiling, romantic, evocative and shimmering shadows of the world I live in.”

Eleanor May Watson, Another Window Opens, 6 – 27 September 2024.

For enquiries and a list of works available, please contact hannah@theartfive.com

Eleanor May Watson is a visual artist working primarily in paint and print. Eleanor completed her master’s in fine art at City and Guilds of London Art School in 2019 (Distinction) where she was awarded the Slaughterhaus Print Prize and the ACS Studio Prize. Eleanor was recently winner of the Eames Fine Art Award at the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair (2021) and was the winner of the Jonathan Vickers Fine Art Award in 2017, culminating in a solo exhibition at the Derby Museum and Art Gallery. Previously, Eleanor was awarded a place on the Drawing Year at the Royal Drawing in 2016 and completed her BA in Fine Art (First Class Honours) at Wimbledon College of Art (2012). 

Exhibition open times:

6th - 21st September at Benjamin Parsons Gallery, 75b Banbury Road Oxford, open Wednesday – Friday 10 – 5 pm, Saturday 11 – 4 pm.

6th September - 27th September 2024, at Lynrace Studio 12 North Parade Avenue, Oxford, by appointment. Contact info@theartfive.com