The title of the exhibition “Crossing Fields” plays on an ability to see – between a “field of view” – the cross over between painting to photography and back again – and how the illusion of seeing is transferred to each other through perfecting techniques that visually register that which we see.

Roderick Coyne’s exhibition of recent works fills the gallery space with a mood of British nautical experience from the subjects he selects to observe: a WWI listening post, an abandoned rowing boat, a rusted iron curtain, shoreline xblocs, The works also explore how a multi-dimensional image comes into being on a flat surface and grapple with the “apothecary” process of photography and the emergence of digitised imagery. Added to this is Coyne’s continuing interest in the tricky skill of illusory reality of physical gestural painting and the instant capture of reality at a click of the camera.

Look deep into the works shown in ‘Crossing Fields’ and you will see alternating sections of images flowing into printed photographs placed alongside the flat application of pigment in areas of abstracted shapes reminiscent of the pointillist technique that evolved in the 19th Century: a style of painting perfected by George Seurat, Paul Signac, van Gogh, who, coincidentally, practiced at a time when there was growing scientific interest in the deconstruction of the material into sub atomic particles.

Crossing Fields also brings to mind artists historical employment of ‘photographic’ or projection techniques to assist them paint larger than life images. The gradual progression from camera obscura and pinhole cameras to Louis Daguerre’s photographic process on silvered copper plate eventually caused the ‘hyperrealist heroic’ painter Delaroche to declare in 1839 that “…from today painting is dead.” Although this statement jettisoned traditional painted realism shackled by the requirement for “realistic representation” to history it ushered in a liberated and more progressive painting practice. But this old cuckoo continues to disturb…

(reviewed by Jenni Boswell-Jones)

Crossing Fields – an exhibition of recent work – Roderick Coyne – 18 May – 2 June 2013 – AND “eventSpace 1”. See images from exhibition opening.

Also read Susan Trangmar’s introductory text for exhibition catalogue