The Gesture

The use of motions of the limbs or body as a means of expression. A movement usually of the body or limbs that expresses or emphasizes an idea, sentiment, or attitude.

The paintings of Tom Hodgson, Ray Mead and José Unda embody the act of the expressive gesture.

Hodgson and Mead have been painting expressionistic canvases since the early 1950s and rank amongst our country’s most senior artists. Unda who emigrated from Ecuador in the early 1970s practises a more intimate form of expressionism, working primarily on paper.

The painted gesture allows each artists to express and preserve his own unique ideas. In Wassily Kandinsky’s words, “the spirit of the individual artist is mirrored in the form. The form bears the stamp of the personality.” The gesture is the means of expressing and creating the form. Last October the gallery hosted an exhibition entitled The White Show. It featured work that was limited in palette and expressive form. The work was reductive and formal. The Gesture, in contrast, explores the painterly tradition of abstract expressionism.