Still Waters Run Deep

More than a ‘gambler’s medium’

John Singer Sargent, the late-19th-century painter, once described watercolours as “a gambler’s medium”. Any artist who has used watercolours will know instantly what he meant. It is an unforgiving medium, where the slightest mistake can destroy a painting, and unlike in oils, one cannot start all over again. Not just the result – the painting – but also the process is revealed; we see not just the artist’s thought but also his thinking; not just the destination, but also the journey. Every wrong turn, every uncertainty is revealed.

But while Sargent’s phrase is accurate in terms of the perils of the medium, it is inaccurate when it comes to describing the artists who have contributed to this exhibition. They are not gamblers, but masters of the medium, who know precisely how to navigate its choppy waters. To borrow historian Paul Johnson’s words on watercolour artists, they have “the willingness to take enormous risks, and the skill to pull them off”.

Those risks, of course, are worth taking. The artists gathered here have described watercolours as a “lyrical medium”, with “a certain beauty and softness, and a delicate feminine quality”. They have spoken of how “the tender hues of water” return their “vitality”, of how their “human figures [are] seduced into festive mood”. They are stimulated by its “disciplinary demand”, and “excited and thrilled” by the results. And with good reason.

The artists in this collection do not belong to a single generation or any particular school of art. In this exhibition you will see abstract paintings, figurative works, landscapes and still life. They all arise from a single source: a love for the versatile and rewarding medium of watercolours. We hope you enjoy the labour of this love.


Curated by
Jasmine Shah Varma
January 2005