Tom Rowland presents So It Is, a solo exhibition of new paintings by British artist Charlotte Verity. Over time, Verity has mastered a specific visual process to attain truth in her work. Scrupulous observation is at the heart of her painting. In contrast to the fleeting nature of her subjects, the paintings develop slowly and brushmarks record the passing of time.
This is her first exhibition at Tom Rowland, although we have worked together since the publication of her monograph in 2016 and subsequent exhibitions in 2021. We are delighted to present this new body of work which represents the past two years and a dramatic change of environment for the artist.
The keys to my new studio were handed over in March 2022. After decades of working in my studio in a London street, my outlook is now a field, a hill, trees and lots of sky.
How to start? The change was too great to have formed a plan, but I recognised from my few experiences of residencies that I had to respond to my new surroundings with an open, almost innocent mind and to work with a sense of urgency.
Just outside my studio a walnut tree was coming into leaf - to quote Philip Larkin ‘like something almost being said’. I took a new canvas and began what turned out to be a continuous run of twenty paintings. I marked them by month but gradually titles came to mind that give clues to more specific associations. It begins with seeing (of course) then noticing. It may be just a glimpse that sets it off, but hours of looking follow: peering, observing, gazing and questioning until the small canvas seems to hold within it just something of what I have seen, and its significance.
Charlotte Verity, 2024