A Commonplace Collection of Paintings Cole utilises the genre of interiors and objects with meaning to explore the passing of time, personal experience and her responses to everyday life. For her second exhibition at Long & Ryle, Cole also begins to realise subjects beyond interiors, widening the visual language of her painted world, with some works responding to poetry and the act of reading itself. On show will be about 30 works in watercolour and oil.
The exhibition also builds from earlier work which sought to highlight under-recognised women artists within her interiors. Additionally, she explores figures drawn from inspiration from her own life, from motherhood and sisterhood. The figures are related to the interiors in that they could also be their owners. Cole captures a moment of potential, or before-ness. The stiff figures will move soon, and the rooms are shown in a very particular condition that will change soon too. Cole references A.E. Housman’s poem Loveliest of Trees which speaks of the relentless passing of time, and the importance of capturing and treasuring small moments, just as they evaporate and are gone a second later.