Danny Romeril

"This body of work explores the human relationship with space and memory, through the architecture and urban environment we live in. Images are often totally imagined or a reflection of a memory or a place. A chimney pot, hat shop or half caught glance at a building can lead to paintings. I like to work in the in-between space of the known and the unknown, if the places are real they are abstracted through the painting process to become unfamiliar again.

The action of painting is a key element to me. The image is first rooted in drawing which gradually gets left behind, leaving the picture to work on its own, separate from drawing and subject.

The paintings are often heavily layered and textured through an instinctive and spontaneous application of paint. Some areas are scraped back to reveal layers below fighting through to the surface.

The works in this show are all loosely related to retail spaces, shops or spaces that function as places of exchange, be it monetary or interpersonal. In particular the shop window displays offer me a way to explore image-making free of restrictions. Anything can be a shop display if it is presented within the frame of a shopfront. The shopfront might not be immediately obvious in the painting but it acts as a frame for whatever is going on inside. For several years figures have been absent in my paintings, however in my recent work I have reintroduced them in order to acknowledge the human interaction that is integral to these commercial spaces and the encounters they generate. My figures are often in the process of arriving or leaving and are rarely static, in order to capture a purposeful moment in time."

-Danny Romeril 

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