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“Personal contact is intrinsic to the painting and its intimacy.” So says Thomas Rimmington; the Lincolnshire-born, York-based artist behind the current exhibition in the Norman Rea Gallery in Langwith College. Taking inspiration from contemporaries Lucian Freud and Jenny Saville, Rimmington specialises in oil and acrylic portraits. He depicts people from Walmgate, accompanying each work with broken statements by the subjects about their personal lives.
The themes of intimacy and contact are well achieved. The subjects are portrayed with vivid normality, through both appearance and pose. The artist’s employment of rugged textures and contrasts seems to tell each person’s history through their face alone, providing nothing more to avoid detracting from the character portrayed.
This normality is an important aspect of the exhibition. Each work is titled by just the first name of its subject, accompanied by excerpts from an interview with them about their lives; such as their jobs, the cafe they visit or their favourite town. Adding to the ordinariness are photographs of the area, including places mentioned in the interviews, by Roberta Palumbo. While this normality risks straying into triviality, it is an extremely effective way of intimately conveying the personality and history of the community.
Furthermore, Rimmington takes the idea of “personal contact” beyond mere interviews – children from the community itself provide their own artistic comments on their community. The artist led ten workshops with Space 109’s Monday night youth club, resulting in a collection of collages, pencil sketches and paintings. Although such projects can sometimes seem out of place alongside professional pieces, here they are just as important as the “real” works. Though not the most impressive, provocative or moving exhibition; Face of the Community more than fulfils its remit. As well as creating an intimate image of the local area, its portrayal of personality can be shared by communities everywhere, united by simple human nature.
Face of the Community can be seen free at the Norman Rea Gallery in Langwith until 12th November.
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