Dadd's Hole, 2004-2005 Oil on canvas, 41 x 27 cm Mathew Weir New work "Our planet - with its history, its hum of desire, its magnetic fields of attraction and repulsion - is a hard place to inhabit. What makes this possible are sympathy, self-reflexiveness and the flourishing, foundering stuff of beauty. This is what Weir's paintings offer us. This is their strange fruit." (Tom Morton) Emily Tsingou Gallery is pleased to announce British painter Mathew Weir's second one-person exhibition at the gallery. The new paintings continue Weir's exploration of narrative - bringing together literary, historical and cultural references from bygone and contemporary eras. Whilst reprising familiar motifs, for example the 19th century stereotype of the black man as entertainer, new characters also emerge from the drama of these works. Ceramic figurines discovered by the artist in museums, or surreptitiously found in junk-stores, are cast within settings steeped in the history of art. The haunting black abyss of a Goyan interior, or a landscape typical of 17th century Dutch painting, anachronistically and incongruously surround and re-present the inanimate figures. As the heritage of these decorative objects is recontextualised, previously dormant tensions surface on the canvas. By re-approaching images once accepted as benign entertainment by their contemporary audience, Weir's paintings highlight how sentiment can change with posterity, thus leading us to reassess our own relation to contemporary ideals and pre-judgments. The exhibition is accompanied by a 100-page, hardback, monographic publication documenting the artist's oeuvre to date, with an introductory text by Tom Morton. Mathew Weir (b.1977) is based in London. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2003 and has had solo shows with Johnen Galerie (Berlin) and Roberts and Tilton, (LA). His work has been included in "A Violet from Mother's Grave" (Emily Tsingou Gallery, 2005), the "New Contemporaries" (2003), and "Breaking God's Heart", curated by Glenn Brown (38 Langham Street, 2003). Exhibition: 10 October - 2 December 2006 Opening hours: Tues-Fri 10 am - 6 pm, Sat 10 am - 1 pm Emily Tsingou Gallery 10 Charles II Street GB-London SW1Y 4AA Telephone +44 (0)20 7839 5320 Fax +44 (0)20 7839 5321 Email emily@emilytsingougallery.com www.emilytsingougallery.com |
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