D F S Stubbs: Recent Still Life Paintings

solo exhibitions 2007

general view.jpg 98.42 KB	Churchill College, Cambridge 17 February - 3 March

A national touring exhibition of a cycle of paintings, 'The Still Hours', opened in Southwell Minster on 27 April, 2007 and ran until 8 June. The exhibition was shown at Lincoln Cathedral from the 1st until the 30th September. The first showing of a complementary series, 'Via Symbolica', occurred at the biennial conference of Art and Christian Enquiry at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, from 2-6 July.

solo exhibitions 2008

	Momentary Matters, Norwich cathedral 11 February - 31 March

solo exhibitions 2009

about the artist

DFS Stubbs currently lives and works in Cambridge, UK. He studied fine art at Hornsey College of Art in London and the philosophy of religion and comparative religion at Cambridge University.

contact details: dfs.stubbs@hotmail.co.uk

the still-life paintings of DFS Stubbs

The still life has functioned in many traditions as a focus for, or stimulation to contemplation. Stubbs regards his paintings more as a deliberate continuation of this tradition than as ‘art’. If there is art to be found in these works it is best sought in their execution.

Familiar objects from the European still-life tradition include extinguished candles and empty shells – reminders of the transience of human existence. Less familiar elements, perhaps, are Stubbs’ constant depiction of stones, pebbles and blocks of cast plaster. In many Asian traditions stones and rocks are understood as being symbols of the world or of the universe itself and also as being particularly beautiful or precious in an aesthetic sense. The plaster blocks might be understood as representing the more abstract irreducible elements of space and time.

Stubbs, is influenced by early twentieth century Japanese painting; particularly as manifest in the work of the Japanese masters Heihachiro Fukuda and Shinsen Tokuoka, who tried to assimilate their understanding of European design into traditional Japanese painting, with its stress on the depiction of transient effects in nature. Space and light are as important elements in the pictures as are the objects themselves. The ‘interference patterns’ that appear in some of the paintings relate to Stubbs' interest in the new ideas in physics which have originated from experiments with light in the early part of the last century and have affected the way in which we try to understand the world in which we inexplicably find ourselves.

Stubbs’ paintings are a timely reminder of the continuing potential of still life painting; and, in the tradition of this genre, they are best viewed individually, lived with over a period of time to impose themselves upon consciousness.

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