Maggi Hambling

Edge

Mar 2 — Apr 13, 2017
London

Marlborough is pleased to announce Edge, an exhibition of new paintings and sculpture by Maggi Hambling, widely regarded as one of Britain's most significant and controversial artists.

The exhibition follows Maggi Hambling - Touch: works on paper, a retrospective at the British Museum. Hambling has exhibited with Marlborough for 20 years and this is her eighth solo exhibition with the gallery.

Hambling's work offers a counterweight to the careful irony and self-conscious allusion of much contemporary art, demanding a direct and unmediated encounter with the viewer. These new works succeed in convincing us that we are present at, and indeed become part of, their making. We are "on the edge", confronted by the fragility of existence, both ours and that of the planet. The artist has never been afraid of addressing big themes and delivers simultaneous presence of life and death in her work. In this new series, polar icecaps melt, a trafficker drifts, Aleppo and its inhabitants fall, ghosts hover and Hamlet questions. Human vulnerability is continually - and viscerally - expressed. We are asked not so much what do we think, but rather what do we feel.

Works

Hambling aleppo 3 oil on canvas 2016 72x84inches
Aleppo III, 2016, oil on canvas, 72 × 83 7/8 in., 183 × 213 cm
Maggi hambling edge 4 oil on canvas 2015 16 36x48inches
Edge IV, 2015 - 2016, oil on canvas, 35 7/8 × 48 in., 91 × 122 cm
Maggi hambling edge 5 oil on canvas 2015 16 54x67inches copy
Edge V, 2015 - 2016, oil on canvas, 53 7/8 × 66 7/8 in., 137 × 170 cm
Maggi hambling aftermath cull bronze primed and hand coloured 2015 h30w25d21cm
Aftermath (Cull), 2015, bronze primed and hand coloured, 6 1/4 × 9 7/8 × 8 1/4 in., 16 × 25 × 21 cm
Maggi hambling hamlet oil on canvas 2015 67x48inches
Hamlet, 2015, oil on canvas, 66 7/8 × 48 in., 170 × 122 cm