‘Lament For The Poetic: Recent Work’ – Brian Chalkley

Brian Chalkley’s new work seduces immediately. It celebrates the craftsmanship of painting and sculpture, combining the relative freedom of oil with the demands of using lead, cooper and the etching process.

While working at the British School of Rome in 1989, Chalkley was inspired by the remnants of a classical age, which surrounded him there. The fragmentation of history and how we reassemble the past, especially our own, provides the conceptual structure of Lament for the Poet

The conflicts between evidence and speculation are transcribed into works, which are both macho and poetic at the same time. Finely etched images are juxtaposed with bolted lead or grey paint, fragility verses strength.

Brian Chalkley was born in 1948. He studied at Chelsea School of Art and The Slade School, graduating in 1975. He has exhibited four times in the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition, and in seven Whitechapel Opens, in addition to numerous one man and group exhibitions around the country.

Brian Chalkley will talk about his work in a discussion hosted by Peter McCarthy (head of Painting, Coventry Polytechnic) on May 15th, 6pm