The paintings may look like stories but do not tell them” Kate Montgomery says about her paintings.
In her new exhibition, ‘Nuits Blanches’, moonlight suffuses liminal spaces, sometimes private ,sometimes public, sometimes juxtaposed. Women and girls inhabit these
spaces, reading, dreaming, sewing, painting, preparing for unspecified adventures.
There are stories hinted at, but they are for the viewer to finish: suspended, mysterious, shrouded in moonlit magic. Family stories, relationships simple or complex, weave through this incandescent universe both familiar and unknown.
Beyond the narratives, the eye unravels layerings of jewel-like patterns inspired by textile and wallpaper, giving the paintings a richness and density that satisfies long scrutiny: a joyful pleasure in an age of fast consumption, superficiality and short attention span.
The influence of Persian and Mughal miniatures and cloistered medieval scenes is evident, speaking to roots in traditions that Montgomery absorbed as a student at The Royal College of Art when it was housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Her domestic scenes recall Dutch interiors – women at work and children at play. Her chosen materials too are deeply traditional, casein and egg tempera giving her work a flat luminescent glow. Even her characters are born from painterly tradition, developed through a practice of incessant sketching. Wherever she goes Montgomery is constantly observing, on trains, in stations and landscapes.
Dress and domesticity are integral elements in her art. Fashion reflects personal identity and social evolution, Montgomery says. It concerns everybody, we all wear clothes. Domesticity also is a constant, confronted with a changing culture where traditional values are being re-examined, upturned, shelved.
Montgomery’s work is reminiscent of Paula Rego, Leonora Carrington or Louise Bourgeois in its sensibility to evanescent emotions and fleeting situations, suffused with tension and unease. Universal and important, it is an enticement to deep reflection, suspending belief and time.
- Claudia Barbieri Childs
