Located in the Cumbrian town of Cockermouth in the Lake District, Castlegate House Gallery offers a unique selection of paintings, ceramics and works on paper. In addition to showcasing internationally acclaimed figures, such as Grayson Perry, Francis Bacon, Jenny Saville, David Hockney and Frank Auerbach, Castlegate House Gallery also seeks out fresh talent and showcases works by a variety of exciting young artists, including Alex Hain and Louis Appleby. Nurturing the careers of emerging artists is essential to the continued health and vibrance of the art world, and the gallery takes pride in supporting their endeavours and representing their works. Out of an impressive stable of more than seventy artists, here are six who represent both the depth and breadth of Castlegate House Gallery.
Born in Germany in 1931, and sent to England in 1939 to escape the Nazis, Frank Auerbach studied at Saint Martin’s School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London before becoming one of the most internationally acclaimed living artists. A monograph of his work was published in 2009, and he was the subject of a major solo retrospective at Tate London in 2015. Auerbach recreates familiar scenes with the eyes of an artist, allowing the viewer to see from his perspective. He focuses on the landscapes of London and Camden town, and specialises in intimate portraits of his friends and family. His Seated Figure is an early charcoal that encapsulates both his expressive style and impressive command of linework.
After becoming injured in a serious traffic accident near his home in Selkirk, Alex Hain turned to art to speed his recovery and process his emotions. His bold brushwork and thickly impastoed textures reveal an artistic maturity that belies his age, and this talent ensured his near-immediate success. Hain had his first joint exhibition just six months after being discovered, and completed his first solo show with Castlegate House Gallery in 2018. He is now one of the four young artists in the gallery’s Covid Contemporary exhibition, which features pieces made during and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
We seek out new young talent at the start of their careers, support them, exhibit their works and try and be a positive force in a world that can often chew them up and spit them out. Our current exhibition, “Covid Contemporary” is exactly that, it is supporting four young artists and giving them a platform.
Undoubtedly one of the most recognised and respected British artists working today, Grayson Perry first made a name for himself with his controversial pottery and his commentary on the injustices of modern life. Perry won the Turner Prize in 2003, was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 2012 and was awarded a CBE in 2013, cementing his reputation and legacy as one of the most important contemporary artists not only in the UK, but worldwide. His Portrait of Kate Bernard depicts the bust of the writer incised into terracotta, holding a pen and surrounded by books with humorous titles such as Frightful Fashions, Up the Arsenal, Foreign Muck and Jolly Good Ideas.
A native of Manchester, Hughie O’Donoghue’s work is a palimpsest of memory and history. He frequently layers perspectives from his own life with those of others, such as of his mother’s family in County Mayo or his father’s as a soldier in WWII. Looking to the past, as he puts it, they are a “series of experiences over time”. This approach is paralleled in his oil painting Exodus 6, a dreamlike portrait of the MV Plassey. The ship was originally a naval trawler called the HMS Juliet, before it was sold into the merchant navy in the 1950s and running aground during an Atlantic storm. It is a well-known shipwreck on the shore of Inis Oirr in Galway Bay, still standing as a monument to its own varied history.
Regarded as a true talent of 20th-century British art, Leon Kossoff is remembered for his engaging portraits and studies of the human form. He studied at Saint Martin’s School of Art and the Borough Polytechnic, and was associated with artists such as Frances Bacon and Lucian Freud. He was also a close friend of Frank Auerbach, and the two artists influenced each other throughout their careers – they are both recognised for their strong, expressive line work. The charcoal drawing Fidelma is a dynamic portrait typical of Kossoff, with dark, bold lines bringing the subject forward from the web of the background.
Another young artist showcased in the Covid Contemporary exhibit, Louis Appleby was discovered by Castlegate House Gallery in the summer of 2014, at his graduation show at Wimbledon College of Arts. Appleby is adept at layering objects in a sort of painted collage, deconstructing and rearranging elements to create coherent yet unique compositions. Nostalgia collides with technology in his quasi-vaporwave creations, exemplified in his painting Everything is Poison, it All Depends on the Dosage, which features a laughing Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons on an iPhone docked in a window beneath a glowing twilight sky.
The Castlegate House Gallery is open to visitors Thursday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm or by appointment. Their current exhibition, Covid Contemporary, is running until 19 December, and a 3D virtual gallery tour is available on their website.