Dorian Gray Project: Happy Days
Curated by Infinity Bunce and Katherine Lubar
Dorian Gray is a series of curated shows across London and Europe that reflect the processes of contemporary methods of painting practice. Dorian Gray 1 was exhibited at The Vegas Gallery in Redchurch Street, London.
This show consists of 28 contemporary painters. The artists are:
Shane Bradford, Piers Secunda, G-Brecht, Andy Harper, Andy Denzler, David Hancock, John Stark, Dan Proops, Juan Bolivar, Gordon Cheung, Andrew Mcattee, Nick Dawes, Infinity Bunce, Katherine Lubar, Ed Pearman, Josie McCoy, Mike Newton, James Roper, Nomad, Nathan James, Monkey Box, Zavier Ellis, Key, Jason Atomic, Simon Naish, Sir Jim, David Ben White and Ben Cove.
Following on from the successful show at the Vegas Gallery, Dorian Gray now presents 28 contemporary painters who are an eclectic mix of subject matter, materials and concepts explored within painting. New artists have been introduced such as the graffiti artists Key, Nomad and Andrew Mcattee who all explore the concept of graffiti art in different ways. The work of Nomad, a German artist based in Berlin, will be seen in a London gallery for the first time. He explores the dilemma of bringing graffiti paintings into a gallery space. His comic-like references, bold colours and stylized lettering bear a similar reference to that of Infinity Bunce who has also brought the elements of graffiti art into her own work. Graffiti artist Key has used painted sculptures of Sesame Street characters to transcend his notion of graffiti art into a gallery space. David Ben White creates his own humorous characters in an attempt to forge a dichotomy between the painting's initial humorous appearance and the subject matter's loaded references. This notion of seduction and displacement lies at the heart of the conception of each work. The self-consciously cartoon-like style of painting in the portrayal of the characters attempts to convey to the viewer a sense of lost innocence, heightened by the awkward appearance of the thick, gloopy impasto of the painting's surface quality. Andrew Mcattee started out as a graffiti artist at the age of 12 and now produces a post-Lichtenstein feel to his graffiti paintings that is not that far removed from James Roper's – both with their spiraling use of imagery of abstract shapes and colours that explode off the picture surface.
Mike Newton, Monkey Box, David Hancock, John Stark, Josie McCoy, Andy Denzler, Edd Pearman and Dan Proops have all taken on board the representation of figurative painting. Some of the artists explore social context in their work such as Josie McCoy and Monkey Box – whereas Josie explores the representation of modern iconic personalities in TV such as in the sitcom 'The Royle Family', Monkey Box has portrayed political figures such as Hitler and Gandhi. These artists' processes are very different in style as Monkey Box consists of two painters Sardine and Toberloni who paint on different sides of the canvas. Toberloni paints on the right and Sardine paints on the left. Josie McCoy's figurative painting has a certain parallel to that of Dan Proops; both artists use a highly stylized form of photorealistic techniques and both artists have made the represented figure almost android – Josie through the application of colour and Dan Proops by covering the person represented in his paintings with pixilated squares. Andy Denzler pushes this concept even further whereby the whole figure is smudged with the movement of the application of paint itself. Simon Naish has taken its concept more in a literal sense and produced images of pods with babies breaking out, floating into space.
While Mike Newton represents a more down-to-earth representation and reflects urban teenagers huddled together plotting and planning their next move, David Hancock also has a contemporary use for these narratives with which to make his paintings. Hancock's photorealist paintings appear acutely aware of this whilst never advocating or reinforcing the cultural mechanisms at work affecting the characters he represents on his canvases. There is a cold, dispassionate quality to the gaze; understanding and acceptance certainly, but definitely something short of advocacy. Edd Pearman has his own way of exploring and representing the figure with his printed stylized images. We see in Pearman's series 'Too Late To Try ' the grand British tradition of using the arts as a form as social commentary but with a contemporary and very personal twist. Utilizing information gleaned from conversations with male friends who work nine to five, Pearman has attempted to visualize the negative effects of the modern world upon the human spirit; a modern and fascinating variant on the theme of 'working for the man'.
We then turn away from hyper-realism in the show to the use of an abstract process in painting. There are painters in this show who delve their way through exploring the use of modern materials that is evident in the work of Katherine Lubar, Nick Dawes, Juan Bolivar, Piers Secunda and Shane Bradford. Piers and Shane show their love of the formulating process in the organic life of paint itself. Shane's infamous books dripping with paint drawing a breath of their own route is not dissimilar to that of Piers Secunda. Both artists use the material of household paint to create a language in painting that has a process of its own. Piers creates thick layers of paint that topple over themselves while Shane's takes on the like of organic stalactites that hang off the bottom of his brightly coloured books. Meanwhile Nick Dawes, Katherine Lubar and Juan Bolivar have created abstract paintings that have concerns about hard edges within a pictorial space. Juan Bolivar's language of painting lies heavily in the element of line and he arrests it with graphic images of abstracted characters. Nick Dawes concerns himself with the manipulation of gloss in conjunction with matt acrylic. He similarly contrasts the idea of control and order with the element of chance that arises from his drips, that roll down from his appropriated road sign imagery, breaking free to have a journey of their own similar to that of Shane Bradford. Katherine Lubar's main interest is in light and the emotional, psychological and visual effects of its patterns on man-made structures such as buildings and interiors. She abstracts/minimizes the light patterns she sources so as to concentrate on form rather than content and plays with ideas of flatness and depth with the use of perspective and colour. Nick Dawes also draws upon the element of flatness in his paintings whereby areas of his road signs are surrounded by careful layers of manipulated paint that encompass the sharp-edged gloss road signs.
John Stark and Gordon Cheung bring their own unique vision of painting to the show. Stark's sombre black and grey paintings combine their imagery with a Romantic rhetoric of landscape. He underlines how the concerns and motifs of the 19th Century high culture continue to thrive in 21st Century popular culture and investigates the possibilities afforded by these subliminal continuities of Western civilization. Whereas Gordon Cheung paints collapsing buildings, graffiti-covered ruins and neon palm trees in overgrown phosphorescent pools that occupy his epic landscapes devoid of humans wrenched open with chasms and craters. Cheung's complex material combinations and images resonate with universal themes and archetypes of Paradise, Earth and the Underworld. G-Brecht also like Gordon Cheung produces paintings of contemporary landscapes. G-Brecht's 'Zones' are of artificial systems of the modern world which interfere with a denatured landscape which is anything but picturesque – fantastical yet disquieting paintings depict a strange meeting place between nature and human technology: a plane flies through a coral reef, strip lights hang from trees and luminous monitors are to be found lurking in swampy almost prehistoric settings.
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"Dorian Gray"
Andy Harper, Ben Cove, Infinity Bunce, John Stark,
Katherine Lubar, Nick Dawes, Piers Secunda,
Shane Bradford, Simon Naish, James Roper
15 June - 15 July 2007
Private View Thursday 14 June 2007 18.00-21.00
Open:Thursday-Sunday 12.00-18.00
www.vegasgallery.co.uk
Who I'd like to meet: The title is taken from the literary masterpiece by Oscar Wilde. This novel’s central theme is that of the character Dorian and a painting of him that seems to take on a life of its own. The painting takes on the physical aspects of Dorian’s journey through life, growing old and showing the ravages of Dorian’s own cruel actions, whereas Dorian himself stays looking young and innocent. The novel highlights and explores the process of painting and we learn to understand the concept of the story that lies beneath it.
This exhibition consists of 10 contemporary painters who are involved particularly in the process of painting. The title bears reference to Wilde’s writing that painting can have an organic form of its own and can be taken as a ‘thing in itself’ within the methods and processes in which it is created. This is evident in the work of Piers Secunda and Shane Bradford. Where the actual paint itself almost paints itself. The paint draws its own breath and its journey creates its own destiny. Paint flows off Shane’s books as if the material is speaking out to us in a visual dialogue of its own being. A space in itself where it creates its own world. A world within a world. A breath of independence and separateness – the separateness that Dorian’s painting obtained as it grew independent from its subject.
This show is not a show that is concerned with being figurative, abstract or conceptual. This exhibition is about the methods of painting itself and the language in which the painter expresses these processes and methods There is a strong element of the artist challenging materials and concepts in order to create a painting such as in Ben Cove’s work supported on casters or the process work of Infinity Bunce, Katherine Lubar and Nick Dawes who are all using modern materials such as household paint and MDF to create new aesthetic considerations in order to manifest the expressive and conceptual intent of the practitioner. Nick Dawes’ gloss drips out and over his carefully painted graphic images of street signs whereas Infinity Bunce’s paintings are carefully manipulated layers of gloss paint battling with the matted area of eggshell underneath. Katherine Lubar uses perspective and colour to play with ideas of flatness and depth and both she and Nick Dawes deny their surfaces in such a way that often they look like what they are not. Andy Harper and John Stark’s technical ability push boundaries within the entire field of painting. Andy Harper’s carefully layered microcosmic world questions one’s ability to look at detail as when looking at his work, the eye has to weave around many layered detailed strokes of paint. Harper’s painting empowers you and almost orders you to stop and slow down. John Stark’s ghostly images painted on oak and birch panel also give a sense of an eerie independence of otherness. James Roper's post-Pop Lichtenstein-like spiraling forms of colour roll across and out of the picture plane hitting the viewer with undulating schemes of colour and form. Simon Naish equally hits us with a contemporary colour palette; however he formulates his sensibility of colour into a hyrid of pop art narrative figure painting, exploring the intersection between traditional painting techniques and contemporary forms of representation.
Every point in space has a different intensity. The means of representing this intensity in painting is therefore the shade, nuance, ie, the span between white and black with all visible shades of gray - painting is used as a mode of representing this difference in intensity, documenting and expressing all the varied intents and subjects that are as numerous as there are practitioners.
This show is the first in a series of exhibitions curated by Katherine Lubar and Infinity Bunce.
THE NANO_CORPORATION IS AN INTENDT TO CRITIQUE, MIMIC OR OTHERWISE EXPLORE THE LOGIC OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES AND OTHER WEB 2.0 PHENOMENA THROUGH ART.
Ahh many thanks..I heard from Jay whilst I was away that you had another exhibition on? Shame I missed it. Keep me posted on new projects of course and do come along to Decasia sometime soon...Unfortunately I rarely have the time to go out but if you have time to come and see me, that would be splendid x x x x x x
