From a tin can in the sky you begin to understand the world
Gabriella Bennett, The Times
July 2024
For many years I’ve coveted Houses, Gardens, a painting by the Glasgow artist Carol Rhodes. She was preoccupied by non-landscapes — airfields, service stations, factory roofs and so on, usually encircled by green fields and always seen from above. Vast post-industrial places are usually Rhodes’s thing but Houses, Gardens is something else. A suburban neighbourhood, domestic and unpeopled, each property fringed by manicured bushes that rise from the canvas like lettuces. The palette is warm, almost autumnal. Shadows from pitched roofs cast haloes on tarmac.
And yet we know it’s a Rhodes piece because of the aerial view. It’s a scene from any old commuter belt town, I know. What makes it special is the perspective. You look down on parts of the world that are off-limits unless you’re a crow or in a hot-air balloon. You discover solar panels where you had no idea they existed. You begin to understand the connection between road, home and green space, to acknowledge there was a master plan all along. […]