PRESS RELEASE
CARYN SCRIMGEOUR - The Imprecision of Feeling
Nov 15 – Dec 22, 2023
CARYN SCRIMGEOUR
The Imprecision of Feeling
The real magic of Caryn Scrimgeour’s mesmerizing work is in the seeing. Stand in front of one of her paintings and really look. Then go away and come back and look again.
Every viewing of her luxurious, luminous tablescapes will reveal something new. A beetle in a matchbox you didn’t notice the first time, a cocktail umbrella, the fine marks that turn tubes of paint into metres of rich chinoiserie fabric. These technically brilliant works are painterly treasure troves.
They’re also, not as one might assume, created by rendering a setup scene of a table. Rather Scrimgeour conjures her work instinctively, adding and subtracting images and elements as she goes in the exacting process. “Just like poems, where one line follows on for the next, my works unfold as a layering of ideas”, she says. “They are a riddle and I need to answer the questions”, she adds.
Scrimgeour is an artist taken with what unfolds around a table. “They are spaces where everything happens”, she explains. It’s the combination of people - witnessing their lives and events, that is compelling. She stores and holds people’s memories and paints things that have meaning and are treasured.
But just who’s tables are these? That is also part of the puzzle that begs to be solved. Who has just stepped out of the shot, got up from their chair, leaving Scrimgeour to detail these vignettes of life’s little details? “Everyone’s interpretation is different, the viewer must unravel their meaning, not mine”, answers Scrimgeour with a smile – inviting you to step closer and decide for yourself.
