NewYork NewYork: oil on canvas 157x193cm. © Philip Diggle 2023.
All rights reserved.
Gallery times: Wednesdays to Fridays 13:00-17:00,
Saturdays 11:00-16:00, Sundays 11:00-17:00,
Mondays & Tuesdays Closed
Private View: Friday 09 February 2024 18:00-20:30
Bringing It All Back Home references Bob Dylan and the voice of poetry, protest and politics that characterised a period of artistic blossoming in New York and elsewhere in the 1960’s, including Diggle’s own home town of Manchester where he was involved in the punk scene of the 1970’s and 1980’s.
The spirit of rebellion lives on in this anarchic show of figurative and abstract work. Diggle is, in his own words, “…for an art that is political, erotic, abstract, exposed – and does something other than sit and entertain…in a museum. I am for an art that embroils itself with everyday and comes out on top”.
Diggle references Sartre, Baudelaire and Wittgenstein: “…climbing Wittgenstein’s metaphorical ladder of knowledge…I needed to jump from the last rung – without a net or anything like argument – so that the world could be correctly understood – painted and given some form of impression of penetrating the essence of things.”
Untitled, oil on canvas 193x162cms © Philip Diggle 2023. All rights reserved
He cites the recent Soutine/Kossoff show at Hastings Contemporary as one which excited him. Many of his own oil paintings have heavily encrusted and worked-on surfaces, “enlivened by a constant play of oppositions, each an abstract drama of visual events, a material metaphor for the invisible dynamics of the world it reflects” (Mel Gooding, art critic). Jackson Pollock is also a key influence, especially the large New York canvases. Pollock’s phrase “I am nature” resonates in this show.
Philip Diggle has lived in Highgate for over 30 years and this is his 8th show at Highgate Gallery. He is a regular contributor to the Royal Academy annual exhibition and has also exhibited in Berlin, Paris, Barcelona and New York. His work is held in collections at Chase Manhattan Bank and the Rockefeller Center in New York, at Caius College Cambridge and in many boardrooms and private collections.
There will be works on paper for sale as well as canvases.
Website: www.philipdiggleart.com
For further information contact: Philip Diggle
The Exhibition co-ordinator: Clare Harrison