LONDON.- Simon Lee Gallery presents London Paintings, Dexter Dalwood's first exhibition since joining the gallery, running 18 November 2014 – 24 January 2015.
London, as a setting and subject matter, has recurred throughout Dalwood's career. However, this recent series of works focusing on the capital presents us with an entirely new and unexpected narrative through which to view a seemingly familiar city. Specific London locations or sites are reconstructed from a collage of memory, cultural and political history and subjective association, and informed by a consideration of the painted history of the city over many years. London is the inspiration and starting point for an exercise in representation – a means to an end and a nominal reference; these are in the end paintings in themselves.
The London Paintings signal an exciting shift in Dalwood’s formal approach towards a more fluid, personal and interpretative working method. These paintings provoke consideration of how history is painted and how it might continue to be painted. Historical references and quotations are increasingly mediated through the painting process, resulting in images of a world that can never be quite settled upon or interpreted. The paintings refuse to coalesce into a space or place, demanding from the viewer a longer and more involved process of looking. The satisfaction of recognition is denied, instead a space is created whose function - purely through its painted reality –is to produce a strong sense of time, site, memory and history – the very things that make up a sense of place. Somewhere between the title, the fragments of imagery and the viewer’s subjectivity, each work acquires its meaning.
Moving with ease between the subjective and the specific to create a rich and individual language, Dalwood expertly combines elements from painting's past to produce something startlingly original in the present: a body of work that continues to re-invigorate and re-invent contemporary history painting.
Dexter Dalwood ( b.1960) lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions include Kunsthaus Centre d’art Centre PasquArt, Biel, Switzerland (2013); Orientalism, David Risley Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark (2012); Dichter und Drogen, Nolan Judin, Berlin, Germany (2011) and a major solo exhibition at Tate St Ives (2010), which toured to FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France and CAC Malaga, Spain. His work will be included in the Fighting History exhibition at Tate Britain (2015). Recent group exhibitions have included The Venice Syndrome – The Grandeur and Fall in the Art of Venice, gL Holtegaard, Denmark (2014), Not Being Attentive I Notice Everything: Robert Walser and the Visual Arts, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, (2014); Le Corps de l'Absence, FRAC Champagne Ardennes, Reims, Setting the Scene, Tate Modern, London (2012) and Dublin Contemporary (2011). He has work in numerous public collections, including: Tate, The British Council Collection and The Saatchi Gallery. In 2010 Dexter Dalwood was short-listed for the Turner Prize.
