Essays

by Paul Woodrow C.Wells has described his work as being “post-aesthetic, signaling the primacy of intellectual reasoning over aesthetic selection”. This apparent strategy reminds me very much of Marcel Duchamp’s preference for art at the service of the mind rather than the retina. The marriage of...

by Shirley Madill If one were to draw a line to define the work of C.Wells, I would describe it as having moved from complexity to simplicity, or when applied specifically to his most recent production, from the use of narrative structures to the physical representation of signs and symbols, which...

by Andrew Hunter It is very difficult to write convincingly of painting, to write affected by painting as opposed to about it, which is to describe it. Painting can be explained, but do you get it? Here's the dilemma. When I encounter the paintings of an artist like C.Wells I ask myself, "What is...

by Mark Cheetham To be different from our everyday lives, yet to make a difference in them, works of art need to be at once approachable and strange. We require a connection -- otherwise, we literally won’t see -- but there is little point in going exactly where we have been before. For...