Leon Hart

About

The series of paintings for this solo exhibition were all produced during a period of extreme anxiety and personal distress for the artist at a time when he was homeless, jobless and fighting mental illness; hence the work is considering how an emotional charge can be engaged through a painting practice. Addressing these personal, social and cultural issues through an abstract painting practice has enabled the artist to create a series of paintings that are multi-faceted. The attempted communication of the artist’s internal world of frustration and anger is caught through the sharp edges and deep valleys carved into deep and complex layers of colour. The tactility of the work appears to invite the viewer to reach out and touch them, as if to feel what the artist has put into these paintings. For this exhibition Hart wished to immerse the viewer in his internal world by creating a further layer, which would move beyond and beside the visual scope of painting. His inclusion of an audio soundtrack for the exhibition space is intended to both augment and amplify the emotional content of the visual works. To achieve this he turned to London-based music producer Mark Estall who took on the challenge of composing a soundtrack for the collection based on his response to the paintings. In addition to the soundtrack, which can be heard in the gallery, any buyer of a particular painting will also receive a unique recording of the section of the soundtrack inspired by the corresponding painting. This audio/visual inter-relation also refers to the normally distinct differences between the way art is produced and consumed depending upon its medium. The uniqueness of an oil painting normally incorporates a very personal and closed form of ownership. Music is almost always mass-produced; many people consume and listen to exactly the same recordings from identical digital files. By way of challenging and contradicting this commonplace notion of ownership, Estall made the decision to treat his music in the same way as the paintings. Only one recording of the soundtrack will be made for each painting that will go to the buyer of the corresponding painting. This particular track will not be duplicated for anybody else at any other time. The ownership of this piece of music will be as unique and personal as the ownership of the painting to which it is a response.