27/02/20
Interview with Jake Wood-Evans
Jake Wood-Evans: Relic
The Gallery, Winchester Discovery Centre
10 January – 29 March 2020
Entering the Gallery at Winchester Discovery Centre is currently something like entering a church or sacred space. The lighting is low and focused on the large, arch-topped canvases, created especially for this exhibition by Hastings-based artist Jake Wood-Evans.
Wood-Evans’s work derives from his fascination with the baroque, especially, in this instance, with the grand altarpieces by the likes of Rubens and Van Dyck. However, after marking out the basic figuration of his version of the painting he is working from, he then sets about removing elements, pushing the paint about in its fluidity, mixed with turps and linseed oil. His resulting imagery sits somewhere between figuration and abstraction – with an element of the meditative – inviting viewers to bring their own interpretation and narrative to the traces and relics of what has been, both on Wood-Evans’s own canvases, and on the canvases of the original paintings, with the passing of time, added layers of varnish, and restorative work, all leaving their mark.
Studio International spoke to Wood-Evans about his inspirations and his process.
Watch the interview here