Dexter Dalwood presents his new 'London Paintings' at Simon Lee Gallery.
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 Historical
references and quotations are increasingly mediated through the painting process, resulting in images of a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.
