RODNEY POPLE
Rodney Pople has a perpetual relationship with discomfort. Even when he is ostensibly painting ‘nothing’ there’s something to worry about, some doubt gnawing in the shadows.
IN RODNEY POPLE’S STUDIO AN EMPTY CANVAS SITSunder a beam of light, like an altarpiece scraped bare. At this moment the painter is back to base, entering a self-described “period of experiment” willing new works into being. It is mid afternoon but the atmosphere, like the artist’s themes, is resolutely nocturnal.
A new work depicts a plane sitting on an empty tarmac at night. By reflex I search its recesses for a signature detail: a wild animal, the bare limbs of a child, a secret portal or an oblique reference to classical painting. Strangely, this
