Nina Royle: And so, the magpies multiply

Nina Royle is an artist based in West Cornwall. Her work is centred in painting but is also made as utilitarian objects, and in this case, installation.

Her most recent work comes together in a new exhibition entitled And so, the magpies multiply on show at Kestle Barton from 23 March – 9 June, 2024. It is an exhibition of paintings, bronze mirrors, ceramics and works on fabric. Royle explains that the imagery moving between these mediums, ‘thinks through symbolisms related to growth, reflection and vanitas (a witness of life’s temporality… our mortality)’:

“To think about symbols and to think about images, particularly during the act of
painting where everything thought and seen seems to move around – is somehow a play between these two states – stasis and motion; thinking and unthinking. How do the black and white chevrons of road signs slip into the black and white feathers glimpsed of a magpie’s wing in flight?” (Nina Royle, 2024)

Symbols steeped in mythology and cultural associations are found throughout these works, such as the mirror, the keyhole and the pomegranate; offering different strata of meaning and serving to give form to things unseen. Royle’s paintings use a traditional gesso surface most typically associated with medieval panel painting. The surface made from this approach is an absorbent, luminous and ultra-smooth ground. They are haptic vessels that allow the rich tapestry of images that Royle weaves together to coalesce.

The hand mirror is another leitmotif that occurs throughout the exhibition and represents ‘a close, domestic, graspable apparatus for seeing’. Royle’s work asks
‘But what is ever truly graspable? What is a mirror? An object or image, a way to
understand, an opening, a keyhole, a truth, or an untruth?’

The mirrors appear as both painted motifs and as objects made from sheet brass and bronze. Historically there are many examples of mirrors made from polished metal, such as the St Keverne bronze mirror found in a field close to Kestle Barton. Bronze is an alloy made from tin and copper. The surface can be rubbed until it shines but it will scab with a moss-green verdigris if left to oxidise, stealing or concealing the mirror’s reflective ability. Royle gives us an insight into her world of images as she explains, ‘Pupil of the moon, a mirror is a symbol that glitters with possibilities for meaning that escape and multiply like magpies with thought.’

This exhibition does exactly that; offering many potential readings, and opening a portal for the imagination to make connections, while delighting in the rich interweaving of materials, symbols and crafting that is braided through Nina Royle’s practice.