LOSING
GROUND
House gallery, 70 Camberwell Church Street
www.housegallery.org
Opening Friday 8 October 7-9pm
9 to 21 October open daily 1-6pm
In ‘Losing
Ground’ Adrian Jeans and Andrew Hladky work from proverbs and photos,
playing with the way they can seem to offer a clichéd summation
of life or experience. The familiarity of the subject-matter is undermined
through the creation of unsettling arrangements and through their working
processes - mixing together different forms of representation. This results
in a feeling of instability in the work, suggesting other strange readings
beyond the immediate appearances proverbs and photos might offer. It also
results in both artists questioning their own means and the possibility
of clear and effective communication through their own media.
In Andrew’s photograph paintings fleeting, subjective sensations,
such as after-images and double-images caused by shifts of focus are recorded
using sharpened cocktail sticks in thin, raised lines of oil paint. These
lines are gradually layered, building into tall ridges which cause the
image to distort and break-down from different angles. Sometimes the palette
and broken cocktail sticks used for the painting are also incorporated
- painted over or left bare. The image of the photo becomes only one facet
of the work, breaking down and contorting from the side in sculptural
masses of paint. These masses of paint disturb the image even whilst creating
it, growing like mould or often rupturing the surface and sometimes interacting
with and threatening the people within the image.
Adrian’s approach to making work is based on proverbs and the proverbial
way of thinking. He depicts the human figure using a variety of drawing
and modelling styles, arranging the resultant collection of stylistically
contrasting images on a flat picture plane. Adrian uses different styles
in each work to add subtle twists of meaning to otherwise standard concepts
of human interaction; our perceptions of self and of others. The works
disrupt any hopes we might have of simple readings by opening these ideas
up to new possible interpretations, forcing us to question our acceptance
of what they stand for. The resin cast relief sculptures combine images
in both two and three dimensions, employing various techniques which blur
the boundaries between sculpture, drawing and painting. The paper works
similarly combine other methods associated with painting, print-making
and drawing.
Andrew (b. 1978) studied at Newcastle University and then Wimbledon School
of Art. Adrian
(b. 1979) studied at Glasgow School of Art before teaching sculpture at
the Kwame Nkrumah University in Ghana for two years. Both artists are
currently based in Cambridge and have exhibited around the country and
internationally. This is their first joint exhibition in London.
house gallery
70 Camberwell church street
London
SE5 8QZ
020 73584475
info@housegallery.org
www.housegallery.org
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