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NEWS: "Millar now more Monet than Lowry"
Following the hugely successful Working Man exhibition at Castle Galleries Meadowhall, art critic and broadcaster Sue Steward reviews the brand new collection of original oil paintings.
I never imagined that Alexander would abandon the ‘gadgies’ as the main characters in his evocative paintings.
And with these surprisingly different new works, he hasn’t. What we see has happened is his dramatic transformation as an artist: the change of palette and colour tones, the materials and techniques involved are one thing, but more obvious is his positioning of these treasured subjects and the role they play in these industrial scenes.
With this new approach comes a change of mood but the results are just as atmospheric and familiar because they are set in the same streets, amongst some of the same smoking chimneys, rows of terraced houses and even the dwarfing viaduct from previous paintings. “In Your Shadow” which has the feel of early Bill Brandt photographs taken in the North of England, with the cobbled alley, washing hanging above the heads of two boys kicking a ball and the anonymous gadgie pushing his bike home. Unlike other gadgies in this new work, Alexander paints him as before – with back to the view, anonymous and archetypal.
But in this new work, the familiar sight of the men in the gadgie caps struggling home on their bike or with friends holding them up after a night in the pub, are now part of the bigger picture, the overall scene – put into the context of their lives. “Hobnailed Boots on Cobbled Streets” doesn’t actually feature the boots but the crowds of men who’ve just clocked out, crammed together in the excitement of leaving work, fags hanging off lips, we can hear the noise of those boots and the chatter of the miners.
This new transfer of feeling from the canvas to the viewer is all around. With “It Is A Working Man Who Is A Happy Man” you can feel the icy path followed by the gadgie rider on his thin-tyred bike. He catches the eye immediately but then you glance across to the smoking chimneys and the outlined pit wheels forming the horizon – and feel the cold and wet evening.
This tactile effect is something new; in the shimmering, sheeting rains, the water and the ominous skies make you feel the cold, wet atmosphere. The fabulous new pastel tones, splashed for effect with bright intervening splashes of yellows and the way the paint is now applied, comes closer now to Monet and the French Impressionists than to Lowry. Now the brush strokes are visibly staccato – as aggressive as his new skies – or splashed diagonally across canvases to simulate the stormy rains.
Sue Steward, Art Critic, London Evening Standard
Posted on 8th Dec 2011
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