Along the Stomping Ground: Caroline Cornelius, Oliver Hoffmeister & Eddie Howard

Playfully spontaneous, thoughtfully araneous: ‘Along the Stomping Ground’ weaves together three distinct narratives of memory, place, and identity

BY GRACE TOMLINSON

Prince and Pilgrim’s new exhibition, ‘Along the Stomping Ground’, spreads across both floors of the Richmond gallery in a riot of exuberant colour. Bringing together the work of three emerging British artists - Caroline Cornelius, Oliver Hoffmeister and Eddie Howard, all Royal Drawing School graduates – the exhibition begins with the artist’s final pieces on the ground floor. Cornelius’ thick, bold daubs of oil or acrylic sit next to the looping, vibrant lines of Howard’s collages and Hoffmeister’s textured, evocative scenes. Upstairs, there is a studio-like space, in which preliminary studies are tacked up on walls and loose sketches are strewn out onto tables. An experimentation with the typical gallery format, the floor was curated by the artists themselves. Wallpapered with collaged saplings and floor-to-ceiling painted greenery, the space immerses the visitor in the spontaneity and playfulness of the creative process. ​

Each artist explores the relationship between place, landscape and story. In Cornelius’ work, figures linger in the background, semi-obscured by the surrounding foliage. Interested in aging and the female form, the artist draws inspiration from her own mother’s movements through the background of her childhood cinefilms. The paintings retain this sense of movement – lightly abstracted, Cornelius’ dynamic figures suggest both narrative and motion. It is through this motion that the complexity and beauty of maternal relationships shines through. The oil painting ‘I’m just in the process of turning into my mother’, for example, glows with warm, citrus colours as the central figure is caught in an act of loving domestic service. Every one of Cornelius’ paintings is saturated with vivacious colour; her figures, even when in the background, command attention. ​

Howard, too, is unrestrained in his use of colour. Many of his collages are outlined in bright pink – in ‘The Deep’, each of the three central figures are cut-outs slotted back into their board like pieces of a jigsaw, now with the barest hint of pink peeking out from behind them. Howard also explores the local stories and histories that can infuse a landscape. Nature becomes a way to express the human spirit, which became increasingly vital to him after a personal loss. In his ‘My Love’ series, each piece depicts a different tree, which, through the painting process, came to represent a particular person to the artist. Associations accumulate across Howard’s work; each element of each piece takes its meaning from its relationship with the whole. ​

The ambient, associative quality of Howard’s work is reflected in Hoffmeister’s, whose images follow a hazy, dream-like logic. Much of his work plays with perspective, as body parts are stretched or disproportionately oversized. ‘Head, Boat, Sun’, features an imposing head in the foreground, impossible to scale against the tiny boat floating on the horizon above. The exhibition features Hoffmeister’s pencil drawings, in which the artist’s unconventionality finds its fullest expression – one piece is dominated by the spread toes of a man lay in bed, foreshortened by the angle at which he is drawn; in another, the page is mostly taken up by the blank space of table. The larger oil pieces, conversely, are sometimes entirely unpopulated but for buildings or vehicles, which look as if their occupants could step back onto the canvas at any moment. 

​Each piece in ‘Along the Stomping Ground’ appeals to the imagination, rich with meaning and story. Continuing Prince and Pilgrim’s commitment to championing emerging creators, their latest installation spotlights the work of three incredibly promising artists. ​​The exhibition closes November 9th, 2024.