Page 15 - Art First: Kate McCrickard: New Romantics

Hounds of Love (page 21) strikes a new note, taking us into a mythological realm,
for this dog-walker is surely a god? He is a Keeper of Hounds, perhaps; he might
belong to a heraldic world, or maybe his identity merges with Kate Bush’s mesmer -
ising album of 1985 where Hounds of Love is the title track and it’s all about being
hunted by love. Compositionally it rings several bells, one of them that flashed
into my mind being Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, 1830 (in the Louvre),
that most passionate of images and the very symbol of mainline Romanticism.
Its counter-classical qualities of extremes, of abandon, of heightened emotional
states and its embrace of the individual, of liberation, of the new, of subjective,
unchartered territories, keeps it forever avant-garde. In the freshness and some
of the raw qualities evident in McCrickard’s glorious new paintings, there is plenty
of this kind of energy. By coincidence there is a concurrent exhibition, The Neo-
Romantics: a forgotten moment in modern art, 1926–1972 at Musée Marmotton
Monet in Paris, which we shall explore together.

Finally, there is the theme of feasting. Look at the small monoprint Spaghetti, 2015
(page 42) which speaks for children’s mealtimes the world over. It is a timeless piece,
very small, in black and white with a touch of oxblood red, yet it is packed with
informa tion that yields itself slowly, with close looking. These children (her own) are
still struggling with the art of using cutlery, but they manage, while two adults are
just visible pottering in the background.

Fast forward to Feasting, 2023 (page 17) a large canvas (its smaller companion
is Gluttons, (page 44) where six adults and three children are gathered on one side
of a table spread with the fruits of the earth. The single fish has a vertical knife
penetrating its gills, bared bones at its tail, where a lit candle takes the eye to the
central mannerist pineapple with its green spikey leaves. Everything else is softer
in form and the individuals, all family members, will recognise themselves. But have
you seen the mystery? It is a strange form that holds the ace of spades. Don’t ask.

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