Digging and Daydreams

Simon Keenleyside

BOC Emerging Artists Award Winner 2002/3

31 October - 29 November 2003

In his paintings, Keenleyside creates environments that are familiar yet unreal; the new works depict gardens. As is the nature of gardens, the paintings aim to open up a world full of wonder and delight. They explore the potential the garden has to be a place for 'digging and daydreaming', a location in which one can dream about the future and reflect upon a nostalgic past. By allowing the materiality of the paint to become the image, Keenleyside builds up the surface to a point where the marks stop describing the landscape and become the landscape itself; although, he does not see himself as a landscape painter and claims no affinity with its tradition.

Rather he presents fantastic, synthetic vistas which are a blend of autobiographical memories of places he has experienced, (many from his childhood in Essex), and diverse references such as medieval tapestry, Dutch flower painting, the works of Ellsworth Kelly, Prunella Clough and Raul De Keyser.

The BOC Group is one of the largest and most global of the world's leading gas companies. BOC launched the Emerging Artist Award in 2002. The annual award supports the work of a promising UK graduate working in two dimensions by financing studio rental, materials, providing a travel bursary and covering the costs of a London-based exhibition at the end of the yearlong award period.