Enclosures

The theme of containment runs throughout Alan Ibell’s new body of work, but where lockdown created for many an exhausted over-familiarity with their surroundings, Ibell’s works remind us instead of the unknown possibilities that might lie within or beyond the enclosure.

The houses in the Night Stories series contain allegories that must be imagined by the viewer, who is called upon to envisage not just the interiors of these multi-storied dwellings, but also the stories of their inhabitants who are shut away from public view. 

The two Enclosure paintings tantalisingly encourage the viewer to imagine the envelopes’ contents, to wonder if their senders are hidden behind the shuttered windows of the adjacent houses, or are enclosed within the frames of other paintings – A New Passage, perhaps, where the claustrophobic hills nevertheless hold within them the possibility of a pass from which to view their other side, or Figure with Trees (Introspection), where the artificiality of the enclosing frame is mirrored within the painting itself.

This is, ultimately, an exhibition not about isolation but about connection, in which the works speak to one another through repeated formal elements (echoed shapes, colours) but also through the viewer themselves, who, moving from work to work, is repeatedly encouraged to confront their voyeurism and tolerance for deferred understanding.

Continuing the artist’s journey from representation to abstraction, these new works invite a meditation on the public and private selves that lie within.