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Fred Sorrell “Ephemeral ‘pops’ of magenta, orange, turquoise, electric blues and greens emerge and recede, like an ember’s soft glow.”

This is Fred Sorrell’s second show at Parrifin, alongside new paintings and works on paper the exhibition includes Sorrell’s first ever large-scale wall painting. (and it’s super-cool)

Fred Sorrell Overland, 2022 Acrylic on wall 246 × 324 cm © Fred Sorrell 2022. Courtesy Parafin, London. Photo: Peter Mallet.
Fred SorrellOverland, 2022Acrylic on wall246 × 324 cm© Fred Sorrell 2022. Courtesy Parafin, London.Photo: Peter Mallet.

Sorrell’s work constitutes an open-ended enquiry into the nature of perception. His position is that an abstract painting can be autonomous – an image that exists in purely visual terms – but that it can also communicate something of its inspiration. He describes the dynamic space between visceral bodily sensation and fleeting visual impressions as the starting point for his work. Physical and sensory experiences are rendered into pictorial structures that then serve as a launch pad from which the ‘technical chess game’ of making a painting – the creation of a new image – can emerge. Importantly, the paintings also address the temporal or ephemeral nature of these visual/visceral experiences. Just as the observation of visual phenomena in nature unfolds over time, rather than being fixed in a single instant (as in a photograph) Sorrell’s paintings are carefully calibrated to reward extended viewing. These new works are finely tuned so that they have an ongoing complexity that belies their initially reductive appearances.

Fred Sorrell Orchard, 2022 Acrylic on linen 70.2 × 90.3 cm © Fred Sorrell 2022. Courtesy Parafin, London. Photo: Peter Mallet.
Fred Sorrell Orchard, 2022 Acrylic on linen 70.2 × 90.3 cm © Fred Sorrell 2022. Courtesy Parafin, London. Photo: Peter Mallet.

As in Sorrell’s first show at the gallery many of the new paintings are rooted in the experience of landscape, light and nature, as suggested by titles such as Coast (2022), Orchard (2022) and Moorland (2022). However, Sorrell’s recent work also inevitably reflects upon the experiences of the last two years, a time of enforced seclusion and resulting interiority.

Fred Sorrell Ember iii, 2022 Acrylic on linen 110 × 160 cm © Fred Sorrell 2022. Courtesy Parafin, London. Photo: Peter Mallet.
Fred Sorrell Ember iii, 2022 Acrylic on linen 110 × 160 cm © Fred Sorrell 2022. Courtesy Parafin, London. Photo: Peter Mallet.

He describes the origins of the painting entitled Ember:

Imagine you are lying in bed, looking up at the room. It’s dark. Gradually, the blackness is replaced by warm and cool blacks. Then, it’s not just black, or grey, but warm and cool tones of blues, browns, violets. Ephemeral ‘pops’ of magenta, orange, turquoise, electric blues and greens emerge and recede, like an ember’s soft glow. The colour seems to fizz, pulse, glow or move – it’s not static. . .

Fred Sorrell Ember ii, 2022 Oil on linen 110 × 160 cm © Fred Sorrell 2022. Courtesy Parafin, London. Photo: Peter Malle
Fred SorrellEmber ii, 2022Oil on linen110 × 160 cm© Fred Sorrell 2022. Courtesy Parafin, London.Photo: Peter Malle
Fred Sorrell Ember, 2021 Oil on linen 110 × 160 cm © Fred Sorrell 2022. Courtesy Parafin, London. Photo: Peter Mallet.
Fred SorrellEmber, 2021Oil on linen110 × 160 cm© Fred Sorrell 2022. Courtesy Parafin, London.Photo: Peter Mallet.

However, Ember is not a representation of these visual phenomena, but rather takes them as the raw material from which a painting, an autonomous image rendered in oil paint on canvas, can be constructed. If successful, the resulting image will communicate something of the sensation that initiated it.

Fred Sorrell, Ember, 23 September – 19 November 2022, Parafin

About the artist

Fred Sorrell (born London, 1984) studied at Falmouth College University (2004-8). Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Long Tide’, Parafin, London (2020) and ‘Between Sea and Sky’, Saturation Point, London (2019). He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, Royal Standard, Liverpool, and Cob Gallery, London. He has undertaken residencies at The Florence Trust, London (2012-13), Takt, Berlin (2009) and Kerel de Grote Hogeschool, Antwerp (2008). Later in 2022 he will participate in a group exhibition at Hestercombe House. He lives and works in London.

 

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