Delaney’s Creation: The Unearthing of the Ancient

1^st March 2012 to 10^th April 2012

"For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will long to return”

(Leonardo da Vinci)

“Creation” is a significant title for Delaney’s solo exhibition as the word suggests the exploration or discovery of something ancient, the origin, the root. Delaney draws on age-old sources of inspiration: the structure and colours of the land as well as the ideas and aesthetics used in rock art and engravings to create a show that celebrates the raw, prehistoric earth.

Some of Delaney’s work, most notably the piece titled “Creation”, experiments with and refers to motifs and iconography used by the San, producers of some of the finest examples of rock art in the world. Their work is understood to hold profound spiritual meaning and signifies one of the longest lasting customs of art-making known to mankind. Delaney’s lithographs feature trees common to the African landscape using stylistic qualities that allude to rock art.

As the artists of the rocks physically used the land to create their work, Delaney now takes us on a journey, a bird’s-eye view of the earth in its simplest and most raw forms and colours. The hues and formal elements that emerge in this facet of the exhibition highlight the abstract nature that the land takes on when viewing it from above.

Delaney states, “I find inspiration in the shapes carved out of the landscape by water, and how that is echoed in the technique of painting, allowing the flow of paint across the canvas in similar ways. The ancient and arid landscape, meandering ribbons of river cutting patterns out of mountains and plains are to be found residing in the shapes and shadows of my paintings”.