'Into the Light', bringing together new works by James Naish and Charlie Yates. Through two distinct approaches to light, one observed and remembered, the other given physical form. An exhibition that moves between atmosphere and object, exploring light as something fleeting, reflective, functional, and continually changing.
Charlie Yates presents paintings that begin with landscapes captured through his film photography, which he reduces and reframes around moments of illumination by reflection on waters, a break in the clouds or a variegated row of trees amongst it all. Growing up in Scotland, Yates became attuned to rapidly changing weather and brief shifts in brightness. Glisk, a Scottish word describing a fleeting moment of light or brightness, has become an important reference within his practice.
Working with oil paint and natural earth pigments, he removes, and softens layers with a multitude of tools and techniques until the original image gives way to something less certain. Larger landscapes are distilled into their illuminated fragments, allowing light to become both subject and structure. Grainy and atmospheric, the paintings hover between a photographed place and the memory of having experienced it.
James Naish approaches light through material and function. Working primarily in bronze and steel, his candlesticks and candelabras are forged, welded, and patinated into sculptural forms that draw from botanical and organic structures. Their surfaces retain evidence of their making, where the hand remains visible through accumulating texture and material is allowed to appear worked rather than perfected. These gestures give the works a painterly quality rooted in the natural world, while preserving their utility as vessels for light. When illuminated, candlelight moves across their irregular surfaces, emphasizing texture, shadow, reflection, and silhouette. In this way, Naish's works do notI simply respond to light but actively produce and shape it, allowing sculpture, function, and illumination to become inseparable.