Rowena Comrie 

'An Eye Full of Vincent'

If the eye supplies the mind with a constant flow of information, the individual considers the meaning of what is seen, and then judges it against the known. However, art offers the mind a different experience; it can stimulate unfamiliar feelings of the ‘sublime’, ‘aesthetic’ or even the ‘tasteful’. The surrealist intellectual Andre Breton unleashed many new concepts for this ‘beyond space and time’ feeling and opened up a fantastic variety of possibilities.

In this show the painterly adventures by Rowena Comrie tap into Breton’s dreamworld to seek out the sharp and smooth evocations of colour possible with formal arrangements in abstract dissonance. Guided specifically by Vincent Van Gogh’s tantalising mix of form and colour in his painting of ‘Bedroom at Arles’ :

"The walls are pale violet. 

The floor is covered in red tiles. 

The wood of the bed and chairs is a warm yellow. 

The sheets and the pillow are light yellow green.

The quilt is scarlet. 

The window is green.

The washstand is orange.

The washbasin is blue.

The doors are mauve…there is no white in the picture"

 Vincent Van Gogh - Letters