Sumptuous: Anna Barlow and David Hayward

About

In celebration of the first anniversary of our move to Church Street, KMA Gallery unveils Sumptuous, featuring the work of David Hayward and Anna Barlow. Considering their work through this lens, the result is a bold exhibition that celebrates the rich tapestry of a vivid, contemporary experience.

Often recalling heavily laden banquets of opulent food, the term sumptuous implies an elaborate abundance of plenty. While this focuses on exquisite material excess, here a shimmering horizon line or an ice cream are celebrated as wonders to behold. It is in these simple pleasures, easily taken for granted, where true luxury lies.

Anna Barlow’s sculptures of confectionery treats rise, tumble and melt, atop plush pillows or magically appearing out of thick helpings of sugary icing. These uncanny sculptures encourage us to remain present, enjoying the richness of plenty when it appears before it disappears forever. In a saturated world where thousands of things pull at us each day, liquifying and crumbling sugar as representative of the swift passage of our precious time could not be more apt. Anna’s art has always played with these notions, but for this exhibition she wanted to invite the idea that Sumptuous is about the joy of living rather than the consumption of everything.

A thoughtful artist with a lifelong fascination with the landscape, David Hayward’s thickly textured encaustic paintings invite a deeper reflection of the surface of each painting. His extensive mark-making creates colourful nooks and crannies, incising the composition as if conducting the erosion of the landscapes he represents. This deeply physical approach to painting goes beyond topography, ruminating on the elaborate sensations produced by something as deceptively simple as a ripple in the sea. For Sumptuous, David has found inspiration from his local Kentish environment all the way to Greece and the Philippines, uniting our shared experience on the earth.

Curated by Kellie Miller, Sumptuous invites you to take this opportunity to slow down to appreciate what is right in front of you, and find prosperity in our everyday experiences.