Piers Ottey - Form and Process

Piers Ottey is to exhibit new work with Zimmer Stewart Gallery at The Gallery, Redchurch Street, London, E2 from 30 October to 10 November 2013.

As the title of the exhibition suggests, the artworks to be shown will demonstrate the artist's view on both form and process in art. Piers Ottey sees art in most things: An old Brough Motorcycle, buildings, a chair and the landscape (both natural and built).

When a chair or other object is right there is something "otherworldly or supernatural" about it, the converse is also true. it is the same with the landscape and also with a painting.

It is not always an instant reaction or epiphany to come to this view on the object, sometimes it can take years. Piers Ottey appreciates the work of Mondrian, Bacon and Giacometti: Similarly, the buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright are also close to perfection, their lines are not computer generated as with many buildings today, they are more natural - showing the "artist's hand at work".

The Process of something is how it is conceived, planned and then created: this is a conscious progression from inception to completion, albeit one step at a time, and is the same whether the object is a motorcycle, a chair or a painting.

Piers Ottey's paintings do not just "happen", he follows his process; they are planned. That is not to say that the final image is predicted at the start, the process is an evolution and each decision influences the next: Painting is an adventure, a complete mystery.

Born in London, Piers trained at Chelsea School of Art in the 1970's and has been painting professionally ever since. He moved to West Sussex in 1980 and set up The Mill Studio Art School in 1994.

Painting mostly in oils, his subject matter has often been influenced by his travels (to The Alps and Europe) but he always returns to painting from the human form, London and local Sussex landscapes.
Piers' work has been exhibited in London, the provinces and abroad and can be found in private and corporate as well as public collections around the world. In June 2007 Piers won the University of Bath painting prize.

The paintings are very personal with a mischievous quality, bordering on the subversive. The 'code' of colours often seen around the edge of his canvasses form a diary, a record of all the colours used to make the image and in the order they were made and used. For Piers, the edges of the picture are important, so is the geometry between the edge and the centre. The square is his most common format; primary red and blue form his initial drawing.

"Surface quality should be special" he says and viewers should feel free to feel the surface of the work.

The Zimmer Stewart Gallery, based in Arundel, have shown Piers Ottey's work for a number of years now; James Stewart, founder and director says "Piers Ottey's exhibitions are always exciting, original and well attended. His works are always in demand."

Norbert Lynton in his essay of 1999 says of Piers Ottey's exhibition of the same year "His many conscious and instinctual choices, rooted in his experience of art itself as well as working with the visible world, give his pictorial statements some independence of it."

Mary Rose Beaumont, art historian and critic, writes "Artists with a sense of humour are agile, deft and defy categorisation, which is wonderfully refreshing when the work is as challenging as is Piers Ottey’s. He revels in his power to puzzle the viewer, both visually in the paintings and verbally in some of his titles. He has a propensity to leave out important features in his landscapes whilst still titling them as if they were there, in other words the artist plays at being a conjuror."