JEREMY MOON – OUT OF NOWHERE

Posted on 2016-07-11

Out of Nowhere features the work of British abstract painter Jeremy Moon (b.1934–1973). Amongst the first artists in Britain to interrogate the use of the shaped canvas, Moon was a significant figure in the 1960s London art scene, known for his playful use of colour and pattern while adhering to a practice that was rigorously non-representational. A mainstay of the exhibition programme at the Rowan Gallery his contemporaries included Bernard Cohen, John Hoyland and Phillip King.

For this exhibition artist Neil Clements (b. 1982) has drawn on his long-standing interest in Moon’s practice to select a number of paintings and a wide range of drawings and archival material for presentation across PEER and Large Glass. This project has emerged as a result of a discussion of the role an artist can play in advocating the work of another artist, and the dynamics of such an interaction. It is accompanied by a short text by Clements.

Exhibition runs through till September 17th, 2016

PEER
97/99 Hoxton Street
London
N1 6QL

www.peeruk.org

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BEN COVE – DOUBLE DUTCH

Posted on 2016-07-11

Cove’s work explores the nature of painting and the object by installing paintings within sculptures and large found images. These investigate ideas of the constructed world, with reference to a broad range of influences, including 20th century modern architecture, art, design, museology and furniture, which Cove referred to as looking at “out of the corner of my eye”.

In Double Dutch found images ‘Biker Gang Hangout’ and ‘Police Scuffle’ act as uncomfortable grounds for sculpture and paintings completed between 2014- 2016. The exhibition brings together these two new installations alongside earlier works ‘Look-See’ (configuration 2, Japan) (2015) and ‘Dear John’ (2014) providing reference points and connections between works that are shown together here for the first time.

Cove speaks about his process of continual over-painting as “building and constructing” paintings. This process is further pursued in the configuration of the paintings into large found images that turn the entire wall of the gallery into a surface on which to build a work. The sculptural geometric forms, picked out in dissonant pastels, disrupt an incongruous photograph; the ‘Biker Gang Hideout’ that hints at violence that has left the room. The elements that strive for order fail like town plans that don’t work and the paintings act as windows through which seem to peer figurative intentions.

Opposite – Dissenter, 2015

Exhibition runs through till August 29th, 2016

Aspex
The Vulcan Building
Gunwharf Quays
Portsmouth
PO1 3BF

www.aspex.org.uk

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THRUSH HOLMES & JONATHAN LUX – MODERNIST LUNCH

Posted on 2016-07-11

Modernist Lunch pairs the work of Thrush Holmes and Jonathan Lux; two artists with clear and confident artistic perspectives who could, certainly, both be shown as solo exhibitions. When paired together what we notice perhaps most evidently is the subversive sense of irony and nostalgia that is at play in the work of either artist. Both artists explore a brightly-coloured, often humorous, and defiantly revisionist approach to Modernism.

For both artists, familiar themes are explored in unfamiliar methods: Holmes’ work is irreverently playful; presently, the young Canadian artist’s practice has been focused on a reconsideration of the traditions of Modernist floral painting, drawing upon predecessors like Picasso and Matisse while upending these traditions with an aggressively contemporary approach. On a smaller scale, his work becomes perhaps more intimate, and exact; each articulation of these floral still-lives seemingly an homage and reaction to the history of such subject matter. On a larger scale, we see his joy in confident, sweeping gestures: the loud, unforgiving Fantasy Painting adopts a sardonic-tone, (the colour scheme reminding of the idiom ‘to see through rose-coloured glasses’), recalling Picasso’s famed 1907 painting Demoiselles d’Avignon in both its colour and casual display of nudes on offer for the viewer. Here Holmes seems eager to paraphrase Picasso: the presentation of nudes presented almost as paintings within his own painting, a splash of that ever-famed Modernist light here reimagined as a fluorescent lightbulb. Like Picasso, Holmes is interested in breaking down forms and exploring singular, bold idea. The addition of neon asks us to further consider our relationship to tradition: is it arbitrary? And can painting be simultaneously silly and well-executed? The answer of course is yes: from Gary Hume’s recent ‘deconstructed rainbow’ works at White Cube or even George Condo’s ongoing oeuvre of maniacally laughing portraits that poke-fun at traditions of painting and portraiture. There seems to be a zeitgeist that longs for relief in the often heavy-handed traditions of painting – particularly those reserved for the still life.

Opposite – Year, 2016

Exhibition runs through till August 20th, 2016

Beers London
1 Baldwin Street
London

www.beerslondon.com

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