Campden Gallery
Skip to main content
  • Menu
  • About
  • Artists
  • Exhibitions
  • Publications
  • Contact
Menu

Artworks

Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Samantha Cary, A Soap Opera, 2021
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Samantha Cary, A Soap Opera, 2021
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Samantha Cary, A Soap Opera, 2021

A Soap Opera, 2021

A series of 10 aquatints
80 x 250 cm (overall as a set)
Each 15 x 20 cm (image)
27 x 34 cm (sheet)
Unframed
£4,000.00
Enquire
%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22title_and_year%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_title%22%3EA%20Soap%20Opera%3C/span%3E%2C%20%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_year%22%3E2021%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22medium%22%3E%20A%20series%20of%2010%20aquatints%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22dimensions%22%3E80%20x%20250%20cm%20%28overall%20as%20a%20set%29%3Cbr/%3E%0AEach%2015%20x%2020%20cm%20%28image%29%3Cbr/%3E%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%2027%20x%2034%20cm%20%28sheet%29%3Cbr/%3E%0AUnframed%3C/div%3E

Further images

  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 1 ) Thumbnail of additional image
  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 2 ) Thumbnail of additional image
  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 3 ) Thumbnail of additional image
View on a Wall
Like many artists, despite extra time potentially afforded by the first lockdown (around home schooling) I felt stuck. The world had become too strange to penetrate. You literally couldn't make...
Read more

Like many artists, despite extra time potentially afforded by the first lockdown (around home schooling) I felt stuck. The world had become too strange to penetrate. You literally couldn't make it up.

At the start of the lockdown, I had made a large painting of a house which I had called Bad TV, a reference to a line in Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives - "life doesn't imitate art it imitates bad television". The painting, loosely based on one that I see from my sitting room window also referred to our communal experience of being confined to our homes watching box sets. I had intended this painting to be the last in a body of work about suburbia and had been searching for new material but to no avail.

The beginning of the first lockdown coincided with the clocks springing forward and the return of the seagulls to our roofs, finding mates and starting families. The nights when the clocks change in the very north of England are bewitching. They glow with colour well into the night. The luminous scenes from my sitting room window began to hijack my attention as I sat watching the bewildering news of the unfolding pandemic. Every night I watched and made drawings.

And finally, I realised that my subject matter was here, about being stuck both as artist and the wider experience of the lockdown. In December of 2020 I started to work on a series of 10 aquatints called A Soap Opera. The series of prints depict one house, lights turning on and off, illuminating pictures, mirrors, curtains, a Louis XI fireplace, photos on the mantel piece. Night descends, but the time is ambiguous, not entirely linear. Christmas comes in the dead of night, the paintings change. The painting in the bottom window is (loosely) based on two Gainsborough images, The Blue Boy and Mrs Graham.

 

Close full details
Previous
|
Next
453 
of  864
Privacy Policy
Manage cookies
Copyright © 2025 Campden Gallery
Site by Artlogic

Campden Gallery High Street Chipping Campden GL55 6AG

Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Send an email
View on Google Maps

This website uses cookies
This site uses cookies to help make it more useful to you. Please contact us to find out more about our Cookie Policy.

Manage cookies
Accept

Cookie preferences

Check the boxes for the cookie categories you allow our site to use

Cookie options
Required for the website to function and cannot be disabled.
Improve your experience on the website by storing choices you make about how it should function.
Allow us to collect anonymous usage data in order to improve the experience on our website.
Allow us to identify our visitors so that we can offer personalised, targeted marketing.
Save preferences