Gerald Wilde: From the Abyss

About

In 1979, October Gallery first opened its doors with an exhibition of Wilde’s work, and has since remained dedicated to bringing this major British artist of the 20th Century to the attention of a wider audience, in the firm belief that he has yet to achieve the full recognition he deserves. Taught by painter, Graham Sutherland and sculptor, Henry Moore, Wilde’s work was widely admired and respected by fellow artists Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach and praised by critics such as John Berger, David Sylvester and William Feaver.

From the intensity of his early work, through to the liberation found in his "Pompeii" series and the more colourful paintings of his later years - his non-figurative enquiries into the workings of the mind - Wilde confronts us on both the abstract level and the level of symbols and dreams. If the tempestuous use of impasto in his early work draws us into the conflict-ridden spaces of his chaotic inner world, then he later balances us on the edge of that abyss, arm-in-arm with clowns, tightrope dancers and spacemen, teetering in eccentric orbits of their own creation. Following Wilde’s startling trajectory, we witness his journey from a place of nervous unease and angst to a calmer place of reconciliation and rest.  Wilde’s ‘clowns’ cast no shadows – illuminated, as they are, by an infinity of brilliant stars, as delicately they tumble, head over heels, through the inky distances of outer space.