MORE THAN A FEELING
27 May - 6 July 2024

Kaye Donachie, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Gideon Rubin, Grace Weir

DE LEÓN is delighted to present our latest exhibition that brings together the work of four international artists, Kaye Donachie, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Gideon Rubin and Grace Weir. The work draws upon the past, whether, as in Grace Weir’s film, it is the resonance of a 14th century building in Spoleto, Italy where artists have spent their summers since the 1970s; or a line taken from a 19th century poem or a piece of early 20th century writing which Kaye Donachie uses as the starting point for many of her paintings.  An old photograph is the point of departure for the work shown by Rose Finn-Kelcey and Gideon Rubin’s paintings draw upon found imagery from archive photographs, magazines or film stills. The title of the show, and the work within it, resonates with this quote from Gideon Rubin, who, when talking about painting, said ‘…and sometimes it’s a richer experience, the second thought, second listening, second look, second memory’.

Kaye Donachie’s paintings intrigue, inviting the viewer to explore their meaning.  They are jewel-like, being small in scale with the image cropped close to the edge of the canvas.  Initially they appear as portraits, but in fact they are not a direct rendition of a face but take inspiration from the works of female modernist poets, writers and painters. Her painting Shadows Hold Their Breath, seen in the exhibition, was inspired by Emily Dickinson’s poem ‘There’s a certain Slant of light’.  Donachie says of the work ‘I tried to encapsulate a pause, a moment caught and illuminated by a shaft of light, a stillness that is encapsulated within the poem. I was drawn to the idea that the poem metaphorically imagines a landscape that listens and the shadows within it figuratively hold their breath.’

Like many artists from the 1960s and 1970s, Rose Finn-Kelcey was interested in ephemeral events instead of lasting objects, including the staging of performances. We are showing The Restless Image: a discrepancy between the seen position and the felt position, her most well-known work, photographed in 1975 near Dungeness, Kent.
It was inspired by a photograph of her mother as a young woman doing handstands on the beach. On a first impression the work appears exuberant. However, its subtitle suggests, as Rachel Taylor wrote, ‘a divergence between the experience of the subject and what is visible to the spectator … the seen position appearing calm and controlled while the felt position might be self-conscious and anxious’. [1]

 As with Finn-Kelcey’s photograph, Gideon Rubin plays with ideas of the hidden and revealed. Facial details are omitted implying a sense of loneliness or the feeling of someone long forgotten. In other works such as  Untitled, made for this exhibition, we are looking at the figure from behind reminding us of the tradition found within German Romanticism called ‘Rückenfigur'.  It acts as a device to invite the viewer into the work and combined with the addition of gesture and clothing, suggests the possibility of imagining a further narrative.  Rubin’s figures, often inspired by old photographs, are intended to trigger the viewers memories, rather than to represent specific identities. Using broad brushstrokes he applies subtle sandy tones, grey blues and off-whites, reminiscent of the palette of the Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi.  Like Donachie, Rubin’s subject matter becomes the device through which he explores the use of colour, tone, and light through the medium of paint.

Working primarily in the moving image and installation, Grace Weir is concerned with aligning conceptual knowledge and theory with a lived experience of the world. We are delighted to be premiering in this country her film For every line, a point not on it which is a long take trajectory through Eremo Santa Maria Maddalena, the historic convent near Spoleto. Since 1971 it has hosted many artists including Sol LeWitt, Mel Bochner, Pat Steir, Richard Tuttle and most recently Weir herself. The film is a mesmeric meander from a former hermits cave through the house to the sacred woods at the hill’s summit outside. Through the location’s unique character and the artworks made directly on to the walls, the film traverses different theories of visual perception from the Renaissance to conceptual art, probing the influence of geometry at the centre of the nature-culture divide. The film is layered - not only is it accompanied by Weir’s narration but also by the hypnotic soundtrack composed by Kieran Sheridan.

Kaye Donachie (b. 1970, Glasgow, UK)
Solo exhibitions include: I kept the memory for myself, Maureen Paley & Studio M, London, UK (2024); Song for the Last Act, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, West Sussex, UK (2023); Into the Thousand Mirrors, Lismore Castle Arts, County Waterford, Ireland (2021); There might be someone else inside you, said the Mirror, beside you, Yuka Tsuruno Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2019) Like this. Before. Like waves, Morena di Luna, Hove, UK; Silent As Glass, Maureen Paley, London, UK (2018); Under the clouds of her eyelids, Le Plateau Frac ile-de-France, Paris, France (2017); Behind her eyelids she sees something, Ribot Gallery, Milan, Italy (2015); Dearest…, The Fireplace Project, East Hampton, USA (2015).

 Rose Finn-Kelcey (1945-2014, London, UK)
Solo exhibitions include: Rose Finn-Kelcey, Kate MacGarry, London, UK (2020); Bureau de Change, Tate Britain, London, UK (2019); Rose Finn- Kelcey: Life, Belief and Beyond, Modern Art Oxford, UK (2017).
Group exhibitions include: Women in Revolt! Art, Activism and the Women’s movement in the UK 1970-1990, Tate Britain, London, UK (2023-4); Breaking the Mould: Sculpture by Women since 1945, an Arts Council Touring exhibition, UK (2021-23); It Is Just A Beginning, National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rome, Italy (2018); Sculptors’ Papers from the Henry Moore Institute Archive, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, UK (2015); Keywords: Art, Culture & Society in 1980s Britain, Tate Liverpool, UK (2014).

Gideon Rubin (b. 1973, Tel Aviv, Israel)
Solo exhibitions include: Living Memory: Louise Bourgeois & Gideon Rubin (2-person show) with music by Nicolas Godin, curated by Beth Greenacre at All Saint's Chapel, London, UK (2023); Gideon Rubin: Yōga, Cassius & Co., London, UK (2023); Substance to Shadows, Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, USA (2023); The Last Day of Summer, Maho Kubota, Tokyo, Japan (2023); A Summer's Tale, K11 Art Foundation, Shanghai, China (2022); Looking Away,  Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, France (2022); Red Boys and Green Girls, Hosfelt Gallery, New York, USA (2022); The Sun Also Rises, Ryan Lee Gallery, New York, USA (2021); Black Book, The Freud Museum, London (2018); Memory Goes as Far as this Morning, Chengdu MoCA, China (2016), Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Herzliya, Israel, and San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, California, USA (2015/16).

​Grace Weir (b. 1962, Dublin, Ireland)
Weir represented Ireland at the 49th International Venice Biennale.
Solo exhibitions include: For every line, a point not on it, Galleria Alessandra Bonomo, Rome, Italy (2023-4); The history of light, Solstice Arts Centre, Ireland (2023); Time Tries All Things, Gallery at the Institute of Physics, London, UK (2019); Unfolded, Laure Genillard, London, UK (2017); 3 different nights, recurring, Irish Museum of Modern Art , Dublin, Ireland (2015-2016).

Group exhibitions include: Song of Songs, curated by Rachel Thomas, Unit London, London, UK (2021).
When is Now?, Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art, Finland (2019); We are the centre for curatorial studies, Hessel Museum, Bard, New York, USA (2016); To the Edge of Time, KU Leuven, Belgium.

With thanks to the artists, Kate MacGarry gallery, Andrée Cooke and Maureen Paley, London.

[1] Tate, 2003