FROM the surreal characters of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the heroes of Narnia to the Sheldonian Theatre’s Emperors’ Heads, artist Mychael Barratt has taken some of Oxford’s most familiar faces, and turned them back on the city that inspired them.
The Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat, Oxford Dodo and Aslan the lion grin, stare or gaze imperiously beside lavishly bearded classical statues – a visual love letter to the city of Lewis Carroll, CS Lewis, and countless artistic predecessors.
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Some of those faces feature in ‘On the Shoulders of Giants’, a show by the contemporary printmaker and painter at Sarah Wiseman Gallery in Summertown.
“Mychael’s Barrat’s particular skill is drawing out the obscure and hidden stories from places that are familiar to us, ’ says gallery director Sarah.
“In 2019, Mychael created an artists’ map from which this exhibition takes its title. ‘The Shoulders of Giants – a Map of Spires, Quads and Oxford Corners’ plots out not only the colleges but the people and history that make the city so unique.
“Mychael has returned once again to the dreaming spires, and we are delighted to reveal his new prints inspired by the surreal characters from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Oxford Dodo and The Chronicles of Narnia in a new suite of silkscreen prints on paper.”
Picture by Ed Nix
The Dodo was a character encountered by Alice, inspired by the rare, mummified specimen kept under lock and key at Oxford’s Natural History Museum – a place frequented by Charles Dodgson, aka Carroll. Mychael’s screen print of the extinct bird feels sorrowful and melancholic – as well it should.
These characters are brought together with some of the city’s best-known former residents and visitors, architectural treasures and figures from history and fiction on his intricately illustrated map – where the Cat in the Hat rubs shoulders with Oscar Wilde, Sir Roger Bannister, Jane Burden, Inspector Morse and Albert Einstein.
“Mychael’s work taps into the deepest of printmaking traditions and, like his predecessor printmaker Hogarth, he seeks out the humorous, the uncanny and absurd, along with the tender and poetic side of life,” says Sarah.
“Delving into his extensive personal library of art books for inspiration, history and narrative are the cut and thrust of much of Mychael’s work.
“His work encounters artists and literary characters from across the centuries, with Mychael re-imagining them as pet owners or assembled in a life-drawing class. In other works, he meticulously catalogues scenarios from Dickens or Chaucer, or maps out imagined locations from other great literary works.”
Describing himself as a narrative artist, Mychael’s work is the result of extensive research. He says: “Before making my On the Shoulders of Giants map, I spent a lot of time walking around Oxford producing copious sketches. I love making the maps, but the constraints imposed by the scale always leave me longing for a little more freedom.
“Knowing that my exhibition at Sarah Wiseman Gallery was on the horizon, I returned to the original sketches for inspiration. The creation of each artwork was done as if I were making a monotype print but then instead of printing them, I let them dry and turned them into silkscreens. The resulting works hopefully retain a spontaneity and a looseness that would be impossible if they were laboured drawings.”
A series of luminous new oil paintings on panel further explore Mychael’s ongoing series ‘Artists’ Pets’ and ‘Life Imitating Art.’ There are also two new garden-themed paintings with A Rousseau-inspired hot-house garden ‘Jungle in Paris’ as well work inspired by Yayoi Kusama – who is painted standing surrounded by lush greenery, dotted with sunflowers.
London remains an important backdrop too. The exhibition includes one of his most ambitious pieces to date, ‘The Soho Altarpiece’ – a complex work exploring the creative West End enclave styled as the Ghent Altarpiece.
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He says: “London is a city replete with stories and as a narrative artist this is something that provides constant inspiration.
“As subject matter, it shifts in and out of my work but will never disappear. I find it ceaselessly compelling.”
And like his Oxford cartographic masterpiece, On the Shoulders of Giants, the titles of the pieces are vital to understanding them.
“They are the keys to understanding my motivation,” he says.
- Mychael Barratt – ‘On the Shoulders of Giants’ is at the Sarah Wiseman Gallery, South Parade, Summertown, Oxford, until February 18.
- See wisegal.com
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