Artist     Robert Jennison
Title      Still Life with Photograph, Allsorts and Garlic
Date      1996
object    Painting
Media    acrylic
Size       24 x 48.5cm
Ref          878

Purchased from the 145th RWA Annual Exhibition in 1997

Other websites featuring this artist's work
www.rwa.org.uk/memfrm.htm

Still Life with Photograph, Allsorts and Garlic
If painting and drawing are acts of invention and exploration, questioning rather than imitation, it seems clear that paintings of objects, singly or in groups, can carry meanings and association far beyond visual realism. Still life painting works on more than one level. It can be autobiographical, an exercise in manual dexterity, and expression of thoughts and feelings. It can also contain clues to profound religious statements, social comment or a search for the essence of things and their underlying symbolism. The plait of garlic with its echo of Chardin, for example, suggests culinary and medicinal properties with legendary overtones. It also consists of repeated organic forms with functional and decorative characteristics. Its monochrome presence contrasts strongly with the brightly coloured ‘allsorts’ and the apparently random scattering of geometrical forms. They exist in the very confined pictorial space which also surrounds the ambiguous flatness of the photograph, again, monochromatic with its illusion of a separate but real outdoor space.

The presence of this photograph, with its intimate personal reference, acts as a focus for the rest and adds a further dimension to the relationships in this deceptively simple still life.

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