Elaine Woo Macgregor, Matisse sketching a portrait of Françoise
Tales from the North
Contemporary Painting from the Glasgow School
An exhibition of works by Alastair Gordon & Elaine Woo MacGregor
Presented by Cynthia Corbett Gallery
31 May – 15 June 2024, coinciding with London Gallery Weekend
Gallery 67, York Street, Marylebone, London, W1H 1QB
Events
Opening Reception, coinciding with London Gallery Weekend: 31 May 2024, 6 – 8.30pm
Finissage: 15 June 2024, 1 – 5pm
Cynthia Corbett Gallery proudly presents an exhibition of recent works by two of the UK’s most exciting painters, Alastair Gordon and Elaine Woo MacGregor. The exhibition will take place in the year of the Gallery’s 20th anniversary, two decades on from one of the Gallery’s first exhibitions ‘Young, Female, Scottish’ which also featured work by Woo MacGregor.
This exhibition will feature recent and new works by both artists, exploring the intersection of painting and narrative, both personal and deeply immersed in the context of art history. Both Gordon and Woo MacGregor hail from Scotland, and trained at the prestigious Glasgow School of Art.
The exhibition includes a series of Alastair Gordon’s extraordinary, meticulous illusionistic paintings that explore the possibilities of ‘quodlibet’, a form of trompe l’oeil that proliferated in 17th Century Northern Europe. Quodlibet (a Latin word meaning ‘whatever you please’), usually includes a board with objects and implements that speak to the artist’s own surroundings and life.
Gordon’s works hold precision and expression in an exquisite tension. Similarly, the academic and historical possibilities of the Quodlibet genre dance with the expansiveness of the Scottish landscape and its deep Celtic history. Gordon’s works are as much about painting as depicting the landscape itself; a commitment to observational painting, made in sight of the subject.
Gordon’s painting begins in the studio, where he paints the illusion of masking tape, wood and paper. From here, the prepared canvas is taken out to the landscape where Gordon paints from observation Some of the works for this show were painted in Gordon’s native Scotland on the Isles of Lewis and Harris. Others were painted more locally to his London studio: Wimbledon and Tooting Common, heralding a new season of paintings about the common grounds of London; pockets of tamed wilderness in the city.
Elaine Woo MacGregor’s work is similarly engaged with the processes of making, and the narrative and imaginative possibilities of painting. Combining mark making and imagery, she weaves together atmospheric and theatrical stories. Brushstrokes and areas of colour have a free-flowing placement interjected with deliberate acts of drawing and mark making. The flow and repercussion of movements with the brush in the stages before plays a pivotal role over the outcome of the work. Expressive layers of paint are revealed with a feeling of excavation, and hidden subversion of expectations.
The subjects of her paintings are drawn from popular and high culture; the life of Audrey Hepburn, Matisse drawing his muse, Peggy Guggenheim in her prime. Black and white stills are reinjected with colour, drenching the past in new colours. The work also embodies a cultural fusion of east and west, painted from her perspective as a Scottish artist brought up by traditional Chinese parents who moved to the U.K in the late 70s from Hong Kong.
Together, Alastair Gordon and Elaine Woo MacGregor’s work offers an exciting view of contemporary painting today. Painting that is very much about the process of painting, mark making, colour and technique; viewed through the lens of art history, and the poetics of identity and where we come from.
About Alastair Gordon
Alastair Gordon, Silver Birches, Wimbledon Common, 2024
Alastair Gordon is a London based artist and lecturer. Works feature in various public, corporate and private collections including the Simmons and Simmons Collection and Beth de Woody Collection. Recent solo exhibitions at the Ahmanson Gallery, Los Angeles and First Things Gallery, New York. He was awarded the inaugural Shoosmiths painting prize in 2014 and has been shortlisted for various other awards including the Dentons Art Prize and Jacksons Painting Prize.
Alastair debuted his work with the Cynthia Corbett Gallery at London Art Fair in January 2020 – and Scope NY March 2020 to great critical and collector response.
Alastair is course leader for Professional Practice at the Leith School of Art, Edinburgh where he also coordinates their graduate residency programme. He was recently artist in residence for the City and Guilds of London Art School. He draws every day and works out of his South London studio where he is currently working on new paintings.
About Elaine Woo MacGregor
Elaine Woo MacGregor, Between film takes - Audrey on the set for Green Mansions, MGM Studios, 2023
Elaine Woo MacGregor is a Scottish-born Chinese artist trained in the Glasgow School of Art. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree with honours, acquired a studio and began working as a full-time artist.
MacGregor’s first solo exhibition was 'Portraits' in Glasgow. Recent exhibitions include her solo exhibition ‘Maman et Muses’, Patriothall Gallery, Edinburgh (2023), ‘Art on a Postcard’, The Bomb Factory, London (2024), LA Art Show, USA (2024), ‘Art on a Postcard’, Fitzrovia Gallery, London (2023), Women in Art Fair, Mall Galleries, London (2023), ING Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London (2023), Art Miami, USA (2023), Expo Chicago, USA (2023) Young Masters Autumn Exhibition, London (2022) and The British Art Fair, Saatchi Gallery, London (2022 & 2023). Notably, MacGregor was selected for Platform 2023 at the London Art Fair in 'Reframing the Muse', an exhibition curated by Ruth Millington, showing with The Cynthia Corbett Gallery.
MacGregor's work has been critically recognised by virtue of the Dewar Arts Award, James Torrance Memorial Award, Hope Scott Trust Award and the Cross Trust Fund. In 2022, she was a finalist in the Jackson's Painting Prize, received the Art Paisley Prize for outstanding work, and Velvet Easel Award. In 2023, she was awarded the RSA Blackadder Houston Mid-Career Travel Award. She will be travelling to Hong Kong and Shanghai for art research in 2024.
Artist Residencies include Visiting Artist and Lecturer in Guizhou Art Academy, China in 2008, and Artist in Residence with Partial Fellowship Award in Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, USA in 2009.
Woo MacGregor’s work is in British and international museum collections including Atkinson Art Gallery and Museum, UK, Art Gallery of South Australia, and 21C Museum and Hotel, USA.
