PROJECT PAPYROPHILIA 2.2 | www.projectpapyrophilia.com

We present our exclusive work on paper Christmas release, with 21 contemporary artists working across media from A4-A2 for just £250-£750. Exclusively on www.projectpapyrophilia.com 

Peter Ashton Jones 'The Dustpan and Brush', 2021 Pastel, conte, charcoal on paper 21x30cm

Kiera Bennett ‘STUDIO SHAPES 48', 2020 Oil pastel on paper 29.7x42cm

Michael Boffey 'Frayed Shroud Light', 2021 Silver gelatin on watercolour paper 29.7x21cm

Adam Dix 'Face to Face', 2020 Ink on Langton hot press paper 18x25cm

Graham Dolphin 'Continuous Composition', 2021 Ink on paper 42x29cm

Zavier Ellis 'Liberté XXVII', 2021 Acrylic, emulsion, spray paint, oil bar, collage, transfer on paper 59.4x42cm

Sarah Jane Hender 'Clown Face', 2021 Oil on digital print 59.4x42cm

Lisa Ivory 'Somniloquist', 2021 Oil on Arches paper 31x23cm

Sam Jackson 'Chronicles 354-X', 2021 Spray paint, ink, pencil on paper 59.4x42cm 

Simon Keenleyside 'Two tree island and moon 103', 2021 Spray paint, ink, mono woodcut on 70gsm Japanese Awagami Kozo paper 38x30cm

Melissa Kime 'Snow Angels', 2021 Acrylic, oil pastel, gouache, charcoal on paper 21x29.7cm

Hugh Mendes 'Paula Modersohn-Becker', 2021 Pencil, coloured pencil, collage on paper 29.7x21cm

Richard Moon 'Study for Augur Series no. 25', 2021 Water soluble graphite on paper 28.5x18cm

Alex Gene Morrison ‘HEX 27', 2021 Acrylic, spray paint, watercolour and ink on paper 59.4x42cm

Michael Scoggins 'COVID19_BLM DRAWING #33 (trump is cancer)', 2021 Graphite and coloured pencil on paper 28x18cm 

Graham Dolphin, Zavier Ellis, Sam Jackson | Repetition | the depot x CHARLIE SMITH LONDON | 14 - 24th October 2021

The inaugural collaboration between the depot_ and CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, Repetition brings together in dialogue the works of Graham Dolphin, Zavier Ellis and Sam Jackson. 

Opening October 2021, the depot_ and CHARLIE SMITH LONDON present together in dialogue the works of Graham Dolphin, Zavier Ellis and Sam Jackson. A core element within each artist’s practice, the exhibition collates their shared interest in repetition in its multiple forms - from Graham Dolphin’s shrines to lost pop culture icons, Sam Jackson’s utilisation of the repetitive language of subconscious thoughts and Zavier Ellis’ exploration of the cyclical nature of revolution. Each artist emphasises the power of language and meaning through repetition. However, they also disrupt it, allowing the audience to interpret freely. Exhibiting together for the first time, the three artists are internationally acclaimed, with works held within major institutions and private collections around the world.

Hugh Mendes | A Retrospective: It was 20 years ago today… | Wednesday 8 – Sunday 12 September 2021

CHARLIE SMITH LONDON is delighted to present a Hugh Mendes retrospective exhibition at The Truman Brewery in Brick Lane, London. Consisting of over 100 paintings and spanning 20 years of work, the exhibition will provide a fascinating overview of Mendes’ career. He is known for political and obituary paintings, where he adopts the visual language of newspapers and renders in trompe l’oeil.

The day of 9/11 in 2001 was a significant one for Mendes, the events of which came to fundamentally inform his practice. Timed to coincide with the 20^th anniversary of that fateful day, Mendes will also conduct a ‘Meditation for Peace’ at 2pm on September 11^th. In his own words:         

“In the summer of 2001, I was studying for my MA in Fine Art at City & Guilds of London Art School. In my studio, I was incorporating newspaper clippings into still life paintings, and was working on a memorial piece to mark the 20^th anniversary of John Lennon being shot in New York: ‘20 Years Ago Today’. It juxtaposed a painted newspaper clipping with another object, in this case a green apple, relating to Apple Records.

That summer, I was also following the contested US election between Al Gore and George W. Bush. They were recounting endlessly in Florida and arguing over ‘hanging chads’. Eventually, they fraudulently declared Bush as the winner. Walking down Brick Lane one afternoon, I spotted a piece of newspaper on the pavement, featuring an image of an Arab with a Kalashnikov gun and some Arabic looking text. Back in the studio, I juxtaposed this clipping with an image of Al Gore and George Bush: ‘Gore Really did Win Florida’.

I hung both of these paintings in my MA graduation show, which opened on September 11^th. That afternoon, while my show was being marked, I idly turned on the TV at home, to see the second plane flying into the Twin Towers in New York…

All hell broke out.

The next day, that same image of the Arab with a gun was in all the newspapers as it was the relatively unknown Osama Bin Laden. It was a chilling coincidence.

I found myself propelled into making multiple paintings relating to 9/11, the ensuing ‘War on Terror’, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. My first solo show, post MA, featured 20 of these paintings and was called ‘Into Manhattan’s Memory’.

Now, 20 years later, to mark the anniversary of 9/11 and my graduation, I am returning to Brick Lane with CHARLIE SMITH LONDON to present a retrospective including over 100 paintings.

During the last 20 years my work has continued to follow political global events, while increasingly focusing on obituaries, and especially those of artists. They epitomise a particular way of recording history, through the lives of individuals. But all referencing the world as viewed through newsprint, and subsequently through the painted image. This has led me to reflect on history through the lives of artists, and to meditate on the role of the artist in society. This necessarily includes my own role as an artist and my place in a long and glorious lineage.

My artist obituary paintings have included many of my teachers, as well as mentors. The most recent development has been using and remaking the self-portraits of many of these artists as invented obituaries in a newspaper format­—as if Rembrandt had an obituary in ‘The Guardian’ newspaper. It has been a particularly fascinating process to consider the styles and techniques of so many artists, as well as reconsidering how they viewed themselves.

10 years ago, I made a work on paper, where I wrote out in pencil all 3,000 names of the people who died on 9/11. This piece is now part of the Sammlung Annette und Peter Nobel in Zurich. Writing out the names took six weeks at about 6 hours per day, every day, and 75 names per day­—it was perhaps the most meditative piece of work I have made.

As part of this exhibition, on the actual 20-year anniversary day of Saturday 11^th September 2021, I will hold a memorial event where I will conduct a ‘Meditation for Peace’, available to join via Zoom and in association with the nearby London Buddhist Centre. I have taught meditation there for many of the last 20 years and continue to do so. It will also be linked to Townsend Gallery in New York and local Buddhist groups there. I will also read out the names of people who died on that day for 11 minutes, echoing similar events which take place in New York every year to pay respect, as well as to reflect.

We find ourselves currently in somewhat unprecedented times, facing ongoing wars, a refugee crisis, potentially catastrophic climate change and a global pandemic. I hope this retrospective exhibition and event will provide an opportunity to think about global developments over the last 20 years and to reflect on our roles within it.”

Simon Keenleyside & Richard Moon | Primeval | Thursday 29 July – Sunday 8 August 2021

 

CHARLIE SMITH LONDON is delighted to introduce Simon Keenleyside and Richard Moon in ‘Primeval’ at 28 Shelton St, Covent Garden, London. Combining the finely painted monochromatic figuration of Richard Moon with Keenleyside’s vividly fluorescent landscapes, the exhibition explores nostalgia, the mythological and the uncanny.  

Simon Keenleyside is known for his vibrantly incandescent landscapes that are both dreamlike and hallucinogenic. Returning to the same location repeatedly, Keenleyside embraces the familiar whilst searching for difference within it. He looks to uncover the strange and unfamiliar, navigating a course between the sublime and the uncanny, but also beauty. As the artist states:

“I want a sense of complicated beauty that is not just seductive or elegant but one that is fraught with anxiety and desires.”

 

Evoking mystery and wonderment by way of higher reality, Keenleyside paints topologies that are both physical places and psychical states.  

Richard Moon’s paintings explore nostalgia and its tendency to alter the factual recollection of memory—clouding it with selective interpretations and ultimately distortions of truth. Largely painted in the monochromatic hues of vintage photography (itself a subject and aid to nostalgia), Moon’s paintings evoke periods in history that in turn might suggest specific events.

Subjects include politically loaded flags such as the American Confederate flag; broken porcelain figures; hybrid creatures with human heads; and still lives with subtle but incongruous gothic motifs sewn into the tablecloth. In combination, Moon’s paintings weave their way through historical, mythological and political implications, questioning the very notion of truth and whether we can ever really be certain of a concrete, stable reality.

Together, Keenleyside and Moon invite us towards an unworldly territory that originates in reality, but which is sublimated through two very specific lenses. They are primal visions that confront us with otherness, timelessness and absence.   

Sam Jackson | Collaborators | 15 July – Sunday 25 July 2021

 

CHARLIE SMITH LONDON is delighted to announce Sam Jackson’s extensive one person exhibition ‘Collaborators’ at 28 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London.

In this exhibition Jackson presents us with a magnum opus—almost fifty portraits of people with whom he has collaborated during his fifteen-year career: curators, gallerists, writers, tutors, photographers, filmmakers, fashion designers, event organisers, artists and collectors; for example, Edward Lucie-Smith, Glen Luchford, Paul Gorman, Giles Deacon, Sacha Craddock, Kay Saatchi, Derek Ridgers, Paul Bayley, Christine Coulson, Darryl de Prez and Guinevere van Seenus. Additionally, the exhibition will include a collaborative diptych with artist, musician and Radio 1 DJ Daniel P. Carter, where each artist has alternately worked on a portrait of the other.  

Jackson is well known for his paintings of anonymous subjects who have been adorned or defaced with signs and symbols; frenetically scrawled text; and roughly hewn graffiti that doubles as tattoo. But here we are offered subjects who we might know or know of—cultural influencers who shape the things that we see, read or hear, whether discreetly or directly. Jackson interviewed each subject to draw out their own cultural influences—literature or songs, for example, which have a meaningful personal resonance—and this in turn informs the text that he deploys. In 2019 Graham Crowley—artist, writer, curator, tutor and a subject in this exhibition—stated:

“Whenever I reflect on Sam Jackson’s work there’s something tantalisingly insoluble – strange to say – but I’m never quite sure if I’ve dreamt them. An infectious form of collective amnesia perhaps?”

But in this exhibition Jackson explores something closer to collective memory. As well as exploring shared influences and stored memories, he is keen to emphasise the meaningful nature of collaborating and meditates on the process and the interactions within the ‘painter’s journey’:

“Conversations could stop and begin again with periods of time between them. I often think about how life continues and these pockets of shared encounters—sometimes brief, sometimes profound—have all in some way shaped my outlook on my painting and my life as a painter. And how I sit within these varying worlds—the artworld, art school, writers, collectors, curators, family and friends”.

 

There is always a diaristic element to Jackson’s work and it is often unclear whether his disruptive, written outpourings are biographical or autobiographical. Being so redolently informed by personal encounters and exchanges, this collection might represent Jackson’s most authentic synthesis of self and other to date.  

Emma Bennett | All Aflame | 7-17th May 2021

 

CHARLIE SMITH LONDON is excited to announce an outstanding solo exhibition of new work by Emma Bennett near to its previous gallery site in Shoreditch at 64 Charlotte Road. New work will be presented on the ground floor, accompanied by a retrospective in the basement. 

This group of paintings were made in a turbulent year for Bennett, which began with several journeys back and forth between London and Wales to visit her poorly father. Visits to the hospital bedside and then, after his death, to the old family home resonated with a wistfulness that is familiar to the artist, whose primary interests include those of memory, time and transience. Upon returning to London, and during the Covid pandemic, these paintings were made.

Bennett adopts enduring motifs including fruit, flowers, drapes, hanging hare, mirrored reflections and ascending stairs, bestowing them with astounding emotional resonance. The artist states: “It is the fragments of still life painting that dominate these images, with clusters of flowers infused with love. Within the endless space of the black grounds, I wanted the compositions to be a guide that leads you, as if following a family line. The figurative elements that coexist here reflect on our relationships with family and significant others – those who inspire us and those who have diminished us.”

Fire is another motif that Bennett has explored in recent years: “Still life and fire have coexisted for some time in my paintings as I’ve attempted to hold the flame and the flammable in a precarious balance or on the point of combustion. Here there are multiple fires: for a lost spark can ignite a memory of a past flame. White heat threatens to scorch the fruit that encircles it.”

Bennett emphasizes that nature is preeminent. She meditates on individual events that have a long-lasting legacy, transcending the lives of those who live through them as well as the imaginations of those who follow.  

Project Papyrophilia | Peter Ashton Jones, Kiera Bennett, Michael Boffey, Cecilia Bonilla, Adam Dix, Graham Dolphin, Zavier Ellis, Sam Jackson, Simon Keenleyside, Melissa Kime, Hugh Mendes, Richard Moon, Alex Gene Morrison, Michael Scoggins, Dominic Shepherd, Richard Wathen | April 2021

 

CHARLIE SMITH LONDON is delighted to announce the launch of its new bespoke work on paper website projectpapyrophilia.com.

Conceived during the first lockdown by gallery director, independent curator and practicing artist Zavier Ellis, PROJECT PAPYROPHILIA experienced a hugely successful first year. Dedicated to work on paper only and priced at just £250 per piece, several hundred pieces were sold globally during its first phase, from first time buyers to prominent private collectors.  

Our initial second phase offering will follow the same principle of unique pieces at £250 each. Our inventory will consist of three new, unseen pieces by each of 16 artists, including project curator Zavier Ellis and new addition Richard Wathen.

We also look forward to introducing you to special sections including Featured Artist, Collector's Choice, Curator's Choice and Q&A, where you will find selections and analysis by Ellis and inaugural guest collector Werner Grub.

Hugh Mendes | In Focus: Love in the time of Covid | Feb-Mar 2021

CHARLIE SMITH LONDON is delighted to present a solo exhibition of new work by Hugh Mendes.

Mendes is well known for his ongoing series of obituary paintings, which in recent years have focused on artists. But in the early stages of his career Mendes’ practice responded entirely to political events. Mendes began making oil paintings of newspaper pages in 2001 when he found a scrap of an Arabic newspaper in Brick Lane, east London. Blowing onto his feet, he picked up a picture of a turbaned man aiming a Kalashnikov, which he later made into a painting that formed part of a diptych, the other being a portrait of George W. Bush. Scheduled to be shown at Mendes’ MA final show, opening on September 11th 2001, the artist had portentously paired Bush with a Kalashnikov aimed at him by the then relatively unknown Osama Bin Laden. This became the precursor of one of Mendes’ two obsessions: the first being The War on Terror, a ten-year retrospective of which was exhibited at Kenny Schachter / ROVE; and the second being an unyielding recreation of newspaper Obituaries.

During this fateful last year, Mendes has found himself responding once again to the tumultuous events that we have witnessed, specifically the Covid pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. As Mendes states: “People have noted that these events have had the most significant global impact since 9/11 and the subsequent fallout. I spent several days in hospital suffering from what was thought to be Covid related symptoms affecting my heart. I was rushed off in an ambulance with my heart lurching from 220bpm to 30bpm. I thought I might die, but my response was to make work on paper from my hospital bed, relating to Covid headlines…”

Death has always been a dominant factor within Mendes’ oeuvre, from his direct engagement with obituaries to the more oblique symbolism of memento mori in still life painting. Death, and the political, have always been intertwined in the artist’s life. He was born on Armistice Day in 1955 in the British Military Hospital at Hostert, Germany, which ten years earlier served as a Nazi experimentation and death camp during the war. His mother worked as a nurse and was one of the first people to enter the Belsen concentration camp. She never fully recovered from the experience and suffered a consequential and untimely death when Mendes was 7 years old. His father worked with British intelligence during the war as a code breaker and interrogator of Nazi officers. After the war he became a newspaper editor, and significantly, after his death in 1998 Mendes found a collection of newspapers and clippings that covered important world events. Upon his father’s death, Mendes spent several hours with his body over two days and subsequently painted his portrait as a corpse. In this exhibition, then, Mendes returns to early methodologies and interweaves death, the political and love:

 

“All my paintings come from a place of love in response to death, in the form of obituaries and what are often very difficult political events. The obituary paintings in particular are attempts to honour the subjects out of respect and love. They are loving memorials.”

Concha Martínez Barreto | Letters I didn’t write | Dec-Jan 2021

CHARLIE SMITH LONDON is delighted to present Spanish artist Concha Martínez Barreto in her debut one-person exhibition in London.

 Martínez Barreto, the gallery’s most recent addition to the roster, presents us with a stunning collection of paintings, drawings, photography, sculpture and a diptych formed of erased antique letters. This diptych, titled ‘A letter to the son and a letter to the daughter’, is a critical work in the exhibition. The letters, originally written in 1943 by a mother to her son, represent a mode of communication that is rarely employed today, and which is both intimate and enduring. However, Martínez Barreto apparently disrupts both their permanence and the original intention by personally erasing sections of text. In doing so, she creates new meaning and arguably reveals a hitherto undisclosed subtext, whilst adopting another’s reinterpreted words as her own.      

Martínez Barreto’s work in other media might be considered similarly. Her strategy is to appropriate collected imagery and objects and to reinterpret by recontextualizing them. Martínez Barreto’s monochromatic paintings are derived from a combination of found anonymous imagery that is then rendered entirely personalised. Her paintings continually epitomise the uncanny and carry hidden meanings that might be interpreted variously, dependant on the story of the viewer as well as the story of the artist.

The sculptural work ‘Bird’ is a deeply autobiographical piece. Martínez Barreto has often adopted birds as motifs to signify innocence and fragility. In this example, an outsized sparrow carved from linden wood lies recumbent, subtly humanized in its form and directly in its painted eyes, which recalls the ancient tradition of Egyptian statue making. Also referencing the Catholic sculptural tradition of Spain and the pietà, Martínez Barreto’s bird is not about life or death but rather the feeling of being alive and dead at the same time. It represents vulnerability but also resilience.

 

The exhibition is completed by two drawings and a series of photographs. Both sets of work embrace the familiar, which is subverted by fragmentation. Misplaced or missing drawn elements; or small vintage photographs inserted into apertures within larger appropriated photographic images unsettle and disorientate. In ‘The Tunnel’ a woman lies on a bed smiling. A photograph of a tunnel is substituted for part of her face and the tunnel renders her eye socket skull-like. The subject becomes deathly and the tunnel suggests a journey toward the interior self.

In totality Martínez Barreto’s work is redolent with implied narrative and disguised autobiography. Indeed, the exhibition as a whole and each individual piece within can be considered a letter that Martínez Barreto did not write.