Robbie Fife: Native

15 September - 18 November 2023
  • Willoughby Gerrish is pleased to present 'Native', an exhibition of new paintings by Robbie Fife, made in 2023. The exhibition...
     
    Willoughby Gerrish is pleased to present 'Native', an exhibition of new paintings by Robbie Fife, made in 2023.
     
    The exhibition marks a return to Fife's native land, having moved back to North Yorkshire in 2022. His previous show with the gallery - 'Locals' - focused on those people in his village that maintained a life connected to the land, featuring gardeners, dowsers and metal detectors, albeit painted from afar. This new body of work has brought the artist back in close physical proximity with the place that inspires him; the majority of the paintings having their roots within roughly a 6 mile radius of the artist's home. This shortening of distance has had a grounding effect, with elements of the natural world taking greater precedence than before. Butterflies and moths, owls and corvids, feathers and horns, hedges and henges have all come to the fore. They are the realities and keepers of the magic of this part of the world, where true power and wonder emanate from. Making them the heart of the paintings has been a way for Fife to connect more closely with this aspect of the world around him, resulting in a heightened awareness of these phenomena. He gives the example that if you start keeping bees, you will begin to see swarms in greater abundance than you previously had (if ever); when you draw your attention to an occurrence in nature it seems to manifest more frequently.

    Fife's observations generally occur whilst out walking his dogs or pottering around the house and the garden. For example, when out looking at a particular patch of dead sunflowers, he noticed, about 40 yards away, a crow chasing a barn owl until the former made contact with its adversary, the battle lasting the length of the field. Painting these subjects then becomes a way of musing on them further and showing reverence. Sometimes they are built into clearer narratives and at other times they remain more of an enigma, but rarely do they remain naturalistic.

    Fife shifts these entities into his lexicon via a painting process that holds little value in any hierarchy of materials, with work ranging from acrylic and coloured pencil on paper to oil on canvas being given equal standing. This varied and experimental approach to material keeps the artist on his toes, creating moments of pleasant surprise and useful problems to fix during the making. Fife is comfortable with the hesitation and tinkering in his practice as it often gives the paintings a patina and sense of endurance that is only achieved through time, labour (and a little anxiety). He believes that the work more often benefits from his obsessive reworking than not, with each new mark or erasure also creating the potential for a new narrative or meaning.

    The making of 'Native' has been and continues to be a way for Fife to reconnect and better understand his home environment - a crucial feedback loop spiralling between inspiration and awareness. In his 'Ways of Nature Study' (1923), Paul Klee wrote, "for the artist, communication with nature remains the most essential condition", this exhibition, for Fife, is a rekindling of that idea.

  • Words and thoughts from Janie Fife

    I asked my mum to write a few things about some of the paintings in the show. She sees the work on an almost daily basis and I am consistently asking her about what she thinks of this colour relationship or if something is missing there. So she knows the development of the work better than anyone. She usually avoids giving clear directives or suggestions of any kind but will know which paintings she thinks work best or speak to her most poignantly; I often find this out after I’ve finished them. So she is my sounding board when I’m going stir crazy in the studio, many ideas are run past her. She isn’t afraid of poking fun at my work either or seeing humour when I might have missed it, I think this is important. To be able to see your work operating on different levels is illuminating and prevents you from becoming too serious. It also helps to see if something comes across how you imagined it might or if the insight comes from a direction you hadn’t seen. These writings come out of our conversations about the paintings, some are weightier and some are flippant and humorous. Just as I believe a painting’s title ought to provide another layer or angle on it, so too do these ruminations.

    - Robbie Fife

     

  • Ancient Harmonics
    Ancient Harmonics

    It was late afternoon in early March, and still broad daylight. It was quiet. I had gone out to photograph the end of season sunflowers. I turned to my right and saw an owl and a crow about forty yards away and flying thirty to forty feet up. The crow was chasing the owl. I don't know who instigated the chase or where it began. Twice I saw the crow make contact with the owl. The owl seemed to be fleeing. 

     

    The crow had a jet-blackness about it and the barn owl was golden white. Both were very beautiful. I thought of the yin and the yang in the meeting of the two animals, then the intermingling of light and dark, with both qualities having equal importance, to mirror the equal eminence of the birds. I had no hopes for any particular outcome, no one bird favoured over the other.

  • When making the painting, the drama felt more fitting to a night sky. We spur the owl on. It flees the crow. The rain comes down. There is a window, the owl must go for it - raw determination, full speed ahead, into the rain, dodging the meteor, escape in sight. The crow is more menacing than in real life - now it is "death from above". There is no lack of empathy for the crow. The crow is not the baddie in this, just a necessity. Symbiosis is the key.


    The blackness of the sunflower heads is like a portal into a different world, waiting as though the owl might fly out through them. The meteor on the left originated as a sunflower, but mutated as the painting progressed to something much more animated. In the painting we see a dramatic event, but in real time it had a peaceful quietness about it.

  • Field Wandering Reveries
    Field Wandering Reveries

    Of the many elements of interest in this painting, the dandelions jump out for me. I had no idea of their importance in the natural world until I started biodynamic gardening. Now I am happy to see them everywhere. They carry the sun and the moon within them. They are a linchpin in the garden.

     

    I was attempting an ode to this remarkable plant when I came across an audio essay by Robin Harford, entitled 'Talking Dandelion'. This says it all (and not to say this painting is just about dandelions):

  • “In the quiet corners of urban sprawls, where concrete rules and nature is but a whisper of its former self, there grows an insurgent – the dandelion.

     

    Unyielding in its brightness and tenacity, it pushes through cracks, insisting upon its place in a world meticulously manicured to keep it out. It is, in its modest form, the embodiment of the revolutionary spirit, the fervent challenger of the established order. The dandelion doesn’t ask for space – it takes it. It doesn’t politely knock on the door of our constructed reality, hoping for an invitation – it disrupts, carves out niches in our grey monoliths and proclaims with a sunny burst of yellow, that resilience is as natural as the very air we breathe.

    It reminds us that the establishment, the status quo, is but a temporary condition waiting for the gentlest gust of wind to scatter its seeds of change.

     

    Imagine for a moment standing amidst a field untouched and unplanned. The air is saturated with a sweet, earthy aroma of life in full bloom. Every footfall is a delicate waltz, a mindful dance upon a carpet of green. Each blade of grass, an audience to your journey. And there, punctuating this verdant expanse, the dandelions rise. Each one stands as a testament to the joy of defiance, the thrill of breaking free from a predetermined script. In the presence of this revolutionary bloom, there’s an intoxicating freedom – a dandelion doesn’t just exist, it thrives. And its existence is a testimony to its audacity. It’s not simply about survival, but about flourishing against all odds and in doing so, shifting the narrative of what’s possible. The dandelion doesn’t just challenge the norm, it redefines it.”

     

    - Robin Harford from his audio essay ‘Talking Dandelion’

     

  • The Unexpected Offering (claimed by the South Henge at Thornborough)
    The Unexpected Offering (claimed by the South Henge at Thornborough)

    The Visit – Early in the year I saw that English Heritage had been gifted two of the three ancient henges at Thornborough and that they were to be open to the public.

     

    We visited later in the Spring and decided to go to the South Henge first, as this had previously been inaccessible. As we approached the circle and our dogs were keen to enter it, I felt we should make an offering of some sort. As we had nothing suitable to leave, we all left some of our hair, including the dogs’. Robbie was obsessing in the henge over which pocket to put a small dreamcatcher in. He wondered if he should leave that as an offering, but it seemed unnecessary to leave something that was of such personal value.

     

    One of the dogs went barmy in the centre of the henge and tore around until she needed to sit.

     

  • We returned to the car and Robbie discovered that one of the two Little Owl feathers, both tied to the dreamcatcher, had gone. It was the only time it had been out of his pocket since we left the house earlier and he said it felt as though the henge had claimed it. He would have been sad to lose the feather ordinarily, but as it was taken by the henge, he didn’t mind.

     

    The Painting – The feather is a Little Owl feather. The man emerged without real intention and the face appeared. Robbie said he thought of William Blake characters. The scale of this painting is diminutive and Robbie was wary of this belittling the power of the henges. He said that he’s not sure whether or not he’s allowed to make another henge painting.