CHLOE SUMMERHAYES – Catalogue – 5-29 Nov, 2024

Catalogue is an oddly dispassionate title for this exhibition of twenty small paintings by Chloe Summerhayes. It understates their liveliness. Using domestic or ornamental objects as a starting point, she has made a visual journal of things she has been intuitively, inextricably drawn to. For her, the meaning of each chosen object is less important than its surface quality, appearance and mutable essence. “I immersed myself in trying to find ways to describe those material textures while also drawing attention to the physical texture of paint by creating illusion and then disrupting that illusion. While making these I was thinking about two opposing energies and how they might create balance within a composition.”

    

This is immediately apparent in many pairings: two jars, two bottles, a pair of earrings, a pair of pears. Opposing energies are presented differently elsewhere. For example, in Costume the two sides of a garment are drawn together and in Lure a pale pink rose is contrasted with the dark green of its leaves. Occasionally a solitary object appears alone. For example, in Merlin we see a hot water bottle, and in Tower a stalk. But even then, the object’s relationship to the field and frame animates a tension of opposites. These works are intimate and intensely active. They are only about the size of a human face so when viewed at eye level, every mark is equally exposed. Chloe’s enjoyment in playing with the constraints of a tight frame is evident and we can be quite sure that nothing has escaped her scrutiny. She challenges herself with compositional structure. How close to the edge can she place figures? What happens when the centre empties? Where exactly should the horizon line go? The depth of darkness and the brightness of light have come and gone as compositions taken shape. No brush stroke is taken for granted. Paint viscosity varies; some layers are gestured washes, others impasto. Her colours are both gorgeous and gregarious. Under-colours peak through gaps and around edges. Each work has its own range and there is no dominant combination.

       

Chloe’s titles are allusive rather than straightforwardly descriptive: Ripe, Superstition, Myopia, Perversion, Mercury. These are suggestive words that elude singular interpretation. And, despite this exhibition’s seemingly dry title, Catalogue is far from a dispassionate show. It reveals the artist’s curiosity; her studied, compulsive absorption. Artifice, something she sees as inherent to painting, absorbs her. “I think I was drawn to these simple, traditional commodities in the hope that in painting them, they transform into something which holds more than just economical value. A way of reminding myself that something so mundane and stripped of meaning can still find ways to captivate and mystify.”

        When materialism is rotten-ripe magic takes root.
                     Joris-Karl Huysmans (excerpt from Là-bas)

Chloe Summerhayes is an artist born and based in Ōtautahi Christchurch. In 2022 she completed an MFA with distinction at Ilam School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury. She received the Sawtell-Turner Prize in 2017 and was recipient of the Ethel Overton Scholarship in 2021. She is represented in Auckland and Wellington by Suite Gallery.
Suite Gallery’s support of this exhibition is gratefully acknowledged.