Purdy Hicks Gallery

Purdy Hicks Gallery is pleased to present works by Jonathan Delafield Cook, Mireille Blanc, Claire Kerr, and Marcia Kure. Jonathan Delafield Cook’s (British, born 1966) charcoal works are pure drawing achievements. The eye at first consumes the image as a kind of specimen, not yet seduced by its surface textures. Each form is recreated with meticulous attention to detail, implicitly sitting on the threshold of scientific enquiry. And yet ultimately every one of them is based on subjective impressions and imaginative discovery of the natural world. Mireille Blanc’s (French, born 1985) works explore the familiar. She imagines layers of emotion and nostalgia through the thoughtful relationship established between the physical act of painting and the reproduction of images. Claire Kerr’s (Irish, born 1968) subjects are explorations of everyday and peripheral things. The paintings, each based on drawings, are miniature in scale and deliberately photographic. But beyond technique, they form a true conceptual investigation of each subject matter. Marcia Kure (Nigerian, born 1970) produces hybrid images strongly linked to Uli art. Her drawings come as a critical response to the postcolonial existential condition, through appropriation and reconfiguration of normative fashion aesthetic, classic juvenile literature, African masking forms, and children’s toys.