MARK ENTWISLE | LONG & RYLE SUMMER EXHIBITION
A familiar face has been chosen to publicise the Summer Exhibition at Long & Ryle in Pimlico. It’s a watercolour by Mark Entwisle of the actress Anya Taylor-Joy, in the role of Emma in the 2020 film adaptation of Jane Austen’s much-loved novel.
Mark Entwisle, Emma– Anna Taylor-Joy, Watercolour, courtesy of Long & Ryle
You can’t help but wonder why Entwisle painted the portrait. Does he know the actress? Is it his favourite film? Could he not get the image of her cupid-bow mouth out of his head? Whatever the case, it shows off his great skill as a watercolourist: he’s created almost tangible fleshiness from the washiest of mediums.
Entwisle’s work almost always seems to throw up questions. Who has just vacated that turquoise chair oddly placed in a pink-walled hallway? Is the young woman in a pretty bright-green dress a backstage catwalk model or a customer in a shop? Why has that ugly chain and padlock on a black metal gate been decorated with a variety of flowers?
His paintings are like stills from movies. Or perhaps they are snapshots of his life. They make you wonder about the before and the after. There’s a realism to them; often a sense of incongruity, too. Incongruous realism, now there’s a genre.
Entwisle started his career as an artist designing book covers, which he did with great success, the authors including Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Somerset Maugham, PG Wodehouse and Aldous Huxley. There’s a graphic element to his style, which has passed through to the second stage of his career.
He is one of twelve painters hung in this exhibition, from which two will be shown by Long & Ryle at British Art Fair (Maro Gorky will also feature). Other artists to be shown at Stand 27 on the first floor of Saatchi Gallery next month include Simon Casson, John Monks, Ramiro Fernandez Saus, Sandra Blow, Terry Frost, Alan Davie, Gillian Ayers and Kate Corbett Winder.