Berntson Bhattacharjee is delighted to present Broken Gleam, a solo exhibition of recent work by Jessie Stevenson.
The title ‘Broken Gleam’ are the words by the Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) and is a powerful sentiment which embodies the exhibition. At odds with each other, the two words create a poetic paradox and suggest a conceptual understanding of hope amongst a grey and fallen world. Wordsworth’s evocative writing and ability to express both the fickle and fantastical encounters of daily life remain a constant source of inspiration for Stevenson. To a place unknown, Stevenson brings her own peripatetic upbringing inspired by a connection to the North Norfolk coast including scots pine tree, rhododendrons and marsh clay to the surface of the paintings. The canvas itself becomes a site of excavation; the drips, spills, slashes are part of her own artistic lexicon and a sense of memory to dig and create a psychological environment.