Duncan McCormick

The Four Seasons 17 - 21 Jan 2024

 

Waterhouse & Dodd Contemporary is pleased to present a solo exhibition of works by Duncan McCormick (b. 1977), a contemporary painter living and working in Shropshire, UK.

In his most recent oeuvre, which we are delighted to show during the ART SG 2024 fair, Duncan McCormick extensively explores tensions between colour, form, and visual narration that captivates collectors worldwide. Born out of the painter's childhood memories of visits to the Mediterranean coast of Spain, as well as Devon and Cornwall in England, and his profound connection with nature, McCormick's work transcends boundaries of figurative painting, inviting viewers into a world where each brushstroke produces a unique visual experience.

Nature serves as the main muse in McCormick's oeuvre. He showcases his ability to capture the essence of the natural world by prominently featuring landscapes, seascapes, and botanical studies in his works. For that reason, we have decided to showcase four groupings of paintings for the exhibition at ART SG, each representing a separate season: Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn.

Those four groups of works show that one of the most defining features of McCormick's art is his masterful use of colour. His palette is both vibrant and nuanced, with hues that seem to dance across the canvas, creating a visual symphony that evokes a range of emotions. Whether it's the warm, earthy tones of a landscape or the bold, contrasting colours of neon outlines, McCormick's choices demonstrate a deep sensitivity to the emotional impact of colour on viewers.

McCormick's command of form is equally impressive. His compositions often blend realism with abstraction, inviting viewers to appreciate the interplay between recognizable elements and more ethereal, dreamlike aspects. This duality of depth and flatness adds layers of complexity to his pieces, encouraging observers to explore the boundaries between reality and imagination. Each stroke seems to echo the rhythm of the elements, from the gentle sway of grass in the wind to the powerful crash of waves against rugged cliffs. McCormick's work becomes a visual meditation on the beauty and transience of the world around us.

 

 

 

 

Art Miami 2023 04 - 10 Dec 2023

 

I am delighted to present an exhibition of 23 paintings by the British artist, Duncan McCormick.

Duncan's paintings are pointedly and deliberately upbeat and optimistic. Many of his subjects are, as he says, "like long remembered daydreams" – memories of childhood holidays on the English coast become more redolent of Florida or California, and Scottish mountain landscapes under snow are re-envisaged as the Swiss Alps or Aspen. They have a pop art manner, of simplified forms and heightened colours, his coastal scenes are deliberately pared down with lines of neon colouring, and many feature idyllic landscapes viewed from inside a house, an echo of childhood yearning.

Duncan McCormick was born in Birmingham in 1977 and studied art at Bournville College, Birmingham, and later took a degree in art and drama at St Martin's College, Lancaster. He spent some years as a professional print-maker with his own screen-printing press, a process that continues to inform his art today as certain motifs are often repeated in a variety of different ways.

In 2018 Morgan Stanley commissioned a series of 11 paintings for their London offices in Canary Wharf, and in 2023 two of Duncan's paintings were purchased by the Pérez Art Museum in Miami.

In the past year Duncan has become our biggest-selling artist, attracting buyers from around the world and his works are now in many important collections in the UK, USA, France, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, UAE and Lebanon.

This solo exhibition of Duncan's work at the Art Miami fair is a unique opportunity to appreciate the breadth of his unique vision, one of optimism and hope, of happy memories and the delight in small pleasures to be savoured now, all depicted with a lightness of touch and a gentle sense of humour. They are, as I hope you agree, a tonic for our times.