If Only it Wern't for the Frames

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham,
Lava Forms Lanzarote 2

Momentarily, the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery in the Leeds University Parkinson building are holding an exhibition containing drawings by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham.
I firstly visited the exhibition briefly last week and remember not feeling too intrigued by the work. So anyway, I went back this morning to try and figure out why it seemed so...dull.

I've concluded that its not quite a fault in the work itself. The mixed media sketches portrayed a kind of objective perception towards the subject of landscapes and townscapes, with a linear expression created mainly in pencil, enhanced by a tonal oil wash. In fact,defined only by primary linear markings, the drawings seemed to almost provide the essence of a blue-print.

This seemed to be the overall theme of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham's work; to undermine the idea of an overwhelming enigmatic quality that landscape has been credited for in the subject of painting throughout art history. And she's done it well.

Whilst walking through the small exhibition space that holds her work, the curator has categorised the drawings in such a way that we travel through the artist's experimentation with the subject of minimisation, starting for quite brightly coloured oil paintings to a collection a small pen drawings consisting only of a few lines to represent the movement of a wave.

However, I think the problem major problem with the exhibition was the way in which these drawings were each displayed in frames. Although the frames were simplistic, some with natural wood borders, others even more simplistically painted white, its the way that behind a glass frame the drawings seem too polished. There's a feeling that you're walking around a history museum rather than an art exhibition. The essence of the artist's trace is lost!