New work now listed in Selected Works, for all enquiries please contact laura@art1821.com
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Art 18/21 PRESS RELEASE FEBRUARY 2012 
WEST:EAST
An exhibition of work by Matthew Lanyon and Alec Cumming
25th February - 7th April
Art 18/21, Augustine Steward House, Tombland, Norwich, NR3 1HF
Combining the work of one of the living greats of the St. Ives tradition with one of Norfolk's own rising stars of the art scene, WEST:EAST at Art 18/21 brings some of the finest paintings of British modernism to Norwich.
Matthew Lanyon's witty and thoughtful abstract pieces are deeply inspired by both the artist's father and his son. Lanyon's father, Peter Lanyon was a great landscape painter in the St. Ives movement, and Matthew's work draws from his visual language, combining it with a pure abstraction inspired by his young son's total, uninhibited honesty.
Now working between Norwich and Delhi, Alec Cumming's fiery and vivacious paintings convey a fiery joie de vivre, and youthful irreverence through shimmering fields of colour and gleaming expanses of light. Full of life and character, Cumming's paintings are beautiful, balanced and reflective.
Art 18/21 is overjoyed to be able to offer this stunning exhibition of work by two great British painters. As he enjoys increasing international success, we are pleased to be able to celebrate Alec Cumming's work in his hometown, and to be able to attract one of the great St. Ives painters to Norwich.
WEST:EAST, our spring exhibition is a great celebration of the rebirth and regeneration of painting in the art world.
New work made over the last 3 months in India to be Exhibited at the 4th Edition of the India Art Fair 2012, New Delhi, India, Under the Gallery Art 18/21, From Norwich. Please Contact laura@art1821.com for more details.
Alec Cumming's work offers us an insight into a world populated by heaving masses of colour, sinewy, serpentine lengths of defining lines and great expanses of luxurious, glimmering light. Nothing so mundane as "human" in this world, but beings of light and shape; pure abstract entities divined from the depths of a formal palette instead. To think of these elements as seperable from one another, or indeed from their maker is folly; for each is reflected in every other, ad infinitum.
The work, by one of the most promising young artists to have emerged from the eastern region in recent years, has developed in the short years that Cumming has been practicing as an artist, reflecting not only an increase in the power of the artist's convictions, but also an emerging calm and clarity. This clarity, seen in the artist's quest for purity of form and composition, is set against an unlikely backdrop of personal and professional upheaval. Ironically, it is the artist's removal from his tranquil riverside studio in sleepy Norwich to the riot of colours, sounds and people of New Delhi that has catalysed this transition. The elements of previous practice that are wound up in Cumming's work; luscious layers of texture and powdery, sensual marks in charcoal carved through the painted surface do not detract from the increasingly centred compositions, but make revelling in the delicate sparseness of these newer works all the more satisfying. These references are reflective, not nostalgic, and hint more at a refined sense of self-awareness than any kind of self-doubt or artistic anxiety.
Preceding the upheaval from provicial England to the capital of India was the upheaval from rural Norfolk to urban life in Norwich, where the artist's vocabulary of sweeping horizontal compositions was challenged by more confined spaces and exposure to a far wider spectrum of the population. It was with characteristic enthusiasm and vigour that the artist took to these new surrounds, developing a language of shapes, colours and textures that paved the way for his most recent movements, but also that drew the attention and praise that enabled his continued experimentation.
Represented by Art 18/21 since early 2009, Cumming has participated in numerous group shows around the UK, hanging work alongside such personalities as John Hoyland, Maggi Hambling and Bruer Tidman. He has also held two solo shows at Art 18/21's partner gallery in London's Mayfair. 2012 marks his return to India, exhibiting at the India Art Fair for the second time. As for the future, shows in London, New York and Hong Kong are planned, making further upheaval and subsequent artistic renewal a certainty. We all can look forward to a year of explosive creativity from a young artist battling the world.
September 2011,
A Language of its Own
29th September - 21st October 2011
for information please contact :-
Alan Wheatley Art
22 Mason's Yard, Duke Street St James's, London, SW1Y 6BU, United Kingdom, (T) +44 (0)2079301262, (E) contact@alanwheatleyart.com
Fully ilustrated catalouge available, More details to follow.
Eagerly anticipated by many, Cumming's second solo show at Alan Wheatley Art,A Language of Its Own,is an enticing visual display of the past twelve months during which the artist has become more consistently daring in his paintings; questioning, pushing, playing and ultimately teasing out more about what he does. With a nod to Modern British Art the twenty-five year old painter takes his tools and produces the freshest contemporary articulations, throwing recognised traditions of landscape and figurative painting over his shoulder.
For more information please contact the gallery.
March 2011
Inspirations 2011
Exhibition: 9-19th March
Open to the public: Wed 9 March 12 noon - 2.00pm
Weekdays 10 March - 18 March 12 noon - 2pm and 5.00pm - 7pm
Sat 12th and 19th March 10am-1pm
Directions: Jarrolds building, second floor, located between Norwich Puppet Theatre and Whitefriars
3 St James Court, Whitefriars, Norwich NR3 1RJ
ART 18|21 www.art1821.com laura@art1821.com01603 763345Opposite Norwich Cathedral Gate, Augustine Steward House, 14 Tombland, Norwich, NR3 1HF
PRESS RELEASE IAS 2011
The works of one of the UK's most promising young artists, Alec Cumming, are eager, and energised immediately tantalising the viewer with the artists vibrant and sexually charged vocabulary. Incorporating both the vitality of youth and the promise of what is still to come, Cumming's works reference things seen, images accumulated, forms that flow: moments.
His latest paintings primarily large scale oil and charcoal works on canvas have intriguingly become a more succinct and energized conversation than previous works as the young artist constantly challenges what he does and pushes his practice in new directions. In the recent paintings Cumming questions and probes the essential dialogue that is played out between himself the artist and the white of the canvas. The results of this enquirey can be seen in the work exhibited at the India Art Summit (IAS) 2011: made in India and inspired by fresh pickings of objects, forms and places.
Whilst Looking to his past triumphs and mistakes Cumming concurrently pulls from a cacophony of remembered marks (the things he has seen) swiftly ejecting them onto the surface in what he describes as a true moment. Neither simply a recollection nor a prophecy, the painting is an experience within itself. Like the matador in the bullring facing his ultimate challenge, in the process of painting Cumming is conscious of, and consumed by this thought of 'the moment'. And in his recent pared down compositions each touch of paint holds so much more currency in the overall composition which when he hits the mark makes for a successful piece.
Discussing his practice Cumming describes the process, 'I want to let all of the components that make the work come into focus. This is when a painting works well. The moment is a glimpse of something that has not been or is not yet there and is a tipping point that is in perfect balance. It is from the outside world that these conversations are had but the work itself stands alone as a painting. Painting is after all a mere form of communicating not of depiction. I need to start fast, make a mark - don't hesitate. Always respond to what is laid down, not to the outside. The canvas should dictate your every move but you are in control, its give and take, you and the canvas. Always keep looking, even when you are in the act of painting, otherwise the painting will get the better of you. Immediacy is all important otherwise spontaneity and freedom will be lost.
It is obviously a process that Cumming is indeed mastering. Looking at his new work we are drawn to the buoyancy of forms, balanced not in a tidy way but hovering on the threshold, a very fine edge which one misplaced mark can make the viewer fall off. Cumming's device of the use of over-marks also works in a new way. In previous Compositions these series of predominantly black lines pulled the composition together but in his new work he detaches them from the objects beneath and further energizes and frees the work.
Cumming laughs as he reveals 'one of the hardest parts is the control in learning to walk away. Even though the time invested in my latest works is the same as before, the amount of time pacing marks is less but infinatly more vital. You have to have patience and learn to let go even though you may not feel you are quite ready to end that part of the conversation.'
Laura Williams
2011
The Touch of Paint
The Touch of Paint sees celebrated artist Maggi Hambling's work being shown for the first time in a Norwich gallery.
Maggi Hambling, Tory Lawrence, Chris Newson, Alec Cumming
For more info visit art1821.com
Exhibition dates: Sat 30th October, 2010 - Sat 27th November 2010
Featuring new sea paintings by one of Britain's most distinguished contemporary artists, Maggi Hambling (b.1945), The Touch of Paint brings together an exciting and visually diverse range of work from four East Anglian artists: Maggi Hambling, Tory Lawrence, Chris Newson and Alec Cumming.
The exhibition embraces the wide-ranging practice of painting and how in the use of paint each artist produces work in their own distinct manner.
Dominating Hambling's work since 2002, her series of intimate, grand and evocative portraits of the wave, depicts the North Sea off the Suffolk coast. Ranging in size from the modest to the ambitious and confrontational, the natural beauty of the sea is shown in all its majesty, revealing its power and energy as both raw and sexually charged imagery.
Tory Lawrence's (b.1940) paintings of the East Anglian landscape, humble in scale, are marvellously dynamic and encompass the whole expanse of land and sky. It has been said that 'as Hambling is to the sea so Lawrence is to the sky' (J Czyzselska, TheTimes, Dec 11th, 2009). A celebrated artist, Lawrence has exhibited widely, her work known for its vivid and remarkably tranquil compositions; vital depictions of gnarled oak trees, corn fields and ancient buildings painted from drawings and memory.
By contrast, blunt,in-your-face and fused with huge energy, Chris Newson's (b.1961) series of heads are according to Hambling, 'urgent and original. There is nothing decorative or easy about them. They are now. Newson's art is his life so it speaks to us about our own lives - fears, joys, grief and delight. It's all here - full of colour and living paint'. A noted film-maker, Newson who hails from Suffolk, first started working with Hambling in her studio in 2007, the Art 18/21 exhibition leading up to his first solo show at the Peter Pears Gallery in Aldburgh next spring.
Like Newson, Alec Cumming's (b 1986) paintings contain a sexual energy that moves around the work as the young artist learns to control the white space of the canvas. Moving towards abstraction, Cumming makes reference to things seen. Landscapes, objects and memories hover in his paintings leaving the viewer on the edge and wanting more. Also hailing from Suffolk, Cumming returns to Norfolk from his solo show in London last June. Following a forthcoming residency in India, he will be exhibiting in Delhi in January 2011.
August 2010
To view an online catalouge of the solo exhibition in june 2010 held at Alan Whetley Art, Masons Yard, St Jame's, London, please click here
Press Release May 2010
Alec Cumming: Forms that Flow. Forthcoming Show
Art1821 will be showcasing the work of Alec Cumming in collaboration with Alan Wheatley Art.
Exhibition, Friday 4th- Thursday 24th June 2010.
Alan Wheatley Art,Masons Yard, St. James, London.
Press Release: How refreshing, to encounter coyness in an artist who following three sell-out shows has his first London exhibition hitting the Capital this June. But there is nothing diffident in Alec Cumming's paintings. One of East Anglia's most exciting new artists, Cumming's work belies his twenty-three years and the artist is a serious contender in the contemporary (once-again-fashionable) practice of painting. Using oil on canvas Cumming layers luscious and well-placed marks in a confident and exciting way. These paintings dally with abstraction. Bold forms produced from layer over layer of gestures and marks, hint at things that have been seen, accumulated by way of a sketch, a photograph and objects, brought back to the studio, to spill out onto the canvases in a free but considered manner. Cummings constantly develops and toys with the spaces he is working on and the tools he uses; pallet knifes, brushes and oils, the artist relishing the surfaces of the canvas that flex with the marks that he makes. Cummings 2010 series is a lush reminder of why this young artist is being so eagerly watched. Once again bold forms hint at things that have been seen but as in previous series, the vocabulary is slightly moved. Still pushing notions of abstraction, Cummings' whilst not necessarily altering the way that he the artist plays with the space of the canvas, has beguilingly changed the way we the viewer have access to the depths and beyond in the images as they succinctly hang together by a charcoal thread or repetition of form and colour.
February 2010
The works of one of East Anglia's most promising young artists, Alec Cumming, immediately offers the viewer a series of surprising productions, of luscious and textured oil on canvas, incorporating both the vitality of youth and yielding the promise of what is still to come.
Cumming's paintings dally with the beginnings of abstraction. Bold forms produced from layer over layer of gestures and marks, hint at things that have been seen, accumulated by way of a sketch, a photograph and objects, brought back to the studio, to spill out onto the canvases in a free but considered manner. Cummings constantly develops and toys with the spaces he is working on and the tools he uses; pallet knifes, brushes and oils, the artist relishing the surfaces of the canvas that flex with the marks that he makes.
Growing up in the Norfolk countryside it is no wonder that Cumming's earlier works feature large horizontal formats, open spaces and landscape representations, the images formed from the naturally tentative applications of paint. A number of trips to differing landscapes, to Dartmouth, St Ives and the Lake District appear to have brought into focus Cumming's visual vocabulary, in particular his understanding of the possibilities offered by the depth of the paint he builds up.
This change in his work also corresponds with his move to the city and daily encounters with the more confined urban spaces which demand a different kind of engagement from the artist in the process of looking. With vigour and inventiveness Cummings hoards images and makes relationships between things seen. From these daily wanderings he covers the canvas with layer upon layer of marks, adjusting, looking, taking off, adding on and looking again until the surface can give no more and the work is, for the time being, finished.
Together with his developed sense of form, Cummings economises his palette, which as his work progresses, becomes sparer in range but with an enhanced clarity in the harmony of colours. But as with all artists, often what is to hand and available becomes necessarily important and the colours that are 'in stock' are made to work.
This paring down of colours combines with Cumming's developed use of over-marks, a device that attracts the gaze and pulls the composition together: a series of black lines scoring the canvas, the drip of paint down the image, or the final trace of a mark that hangs across the top.
Laura Williams, Art 1821.
September 2009
Alec Cumming is a Painter in the sense that he uses paint to convey his experiences of landscape and figure. His paintings are experiences of the landscape, of himself in the landscape, and what he feels and carries back to the studio.
Visits to St. Ives, the Penwith Peninsula and the Lake District have left a deep impression. He often draws during train journeys, marking down fleeting glimpses, forms, contours, tracks and colours. These Drawings together with others that he does whilst walking, combine with memories of different places and this in turn has changed his perception of Norfolk. His Paintings are an amalgamation of these experiences and memories. Alec's colour use is influenced by the earthy colours of the Peak District, as well as the Cornish sea and the skies of Norfolk.
His approach is playfull - as he puts it ' I have a conversation with the process' indicating that he allows the painting to evolve, to talk back and suggest, until it has a visual equivalent to the feeling or memory he has about places seen or experienced.
He uses line in different ways, sometimes taking it for a walk through forms and shapes - a distance from A to B, sometimes to describe a form or suggest a contour. Figures are an implied presence, they may be part of the landscape itself or capture feelings of morality or ancestry. His paintings are not about one particular place, more to do with how his walks across landscape relate to his journey of working through the painting and what he experiences through both activities. These are evocative, uncompromising works.
- Chris Hann.