Wings of a Butterfly is an artistic exchange in motion. The table is set and the viewer is invited into its excitable conversations. And, like any worthwhile conversation, there is a playful stirring in the air, overspilling with the past and the imminent, the everyday and the cosmic.
Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) wrote in his final diary “I should like to present myself to the young painters of the year 2000 with the wings of a butterfly”. The response: a visual love letter featuring the work of 11 contemporary painters and a sculptor currently on show at Ingleby Gallery. Bonnard’s work is hung alongside that of his devotees and statements of their admiration; his paintings remain fresh and blazon with a sensory attunement that continues to strike a chord with painters of the 21st century.
The show succeeds in capturing the Bonnard effect, as everyday trivialities are imbued with the colours and textures of feeling and is a jubilant tribute not only to Bonnard, but to painting, celebrating that the medium is far from dead and through it we can get truly excited about our daily experiences. I think of Sophia Leob’s painting when I say this, in which a mesmerising interplay of colours and dynamic application of paint sweeps the viewer up in an almost-familiar realm.
On entering the exhibition, a wall of bathtub scenes reimagine Marthe’s bathing ritual. The looming perspective of Andrew Cranston’s Fairly Liquid and the still-soaked bathroom tiles in Phoebe Unwin’s A Bath Six Times Over, submerge the viewer in hazy abstraction. Then, as if sprung into being, Joel Tomlin’s carved wooden sculptures exude a characterful charm reminiscent of Bonnard’s pencil study for “Midi au Jardin”, leading our eyes to the suggestions of cups and jugs on a rickety garden table that play out a languid afternoon scene. Ingleby’s first exhibition of the new year is a bright testament to the unending supply of artistic inspiration to be found in the works of past and contemporary painters and, more importantly, the simplicity of a moment.
Installation view, Wings of a Butterfly, 2025, Ingleby, Edinburgh. Photograph: John McKenzie.
“IMG_7743 Pierre Bonnard. 1867-1947. Paris. Promenade dans le jardin. Walk in the garden. vers 1896. Paris. Orsay.” by jean louis mazieres is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.