Works LOCATION contact
08/08/24 - 29/08/24
Sample
Sample
08/08/24 - 29/08/24
Lyndon Barrois Jr.~Caja Boogers~Blake Hart-Wilson~Lorenço~Evan Mazellan~Mike Olin~Huey Ruckus
Chilli Art Projects are pleased to present Sample, a group show bringing together artists who sample, appropriate and abbreviate to establish fresh contexts, visual languages and dialogues in relation to the history of painting and sculpture. Considering the role of the readymade; the everyday and image culture in the age of the internet, the artists pluck from their own experiences and identities to create a composite of the contemporary moment.~~Huey Ruckus’s vibrant, energetic paintings sample from a multitude of visual languages and cultures to create tension filled works that exist in harmony. Sprawling canvases allude to limbs, hands and feet whilst maintaining a spatial distance & repertoire of marks that allows these figurative elements to transcend representation and explore surface, material and texture. Borrowing from the language of cartoons & comics, these works traverse abstraction, figuration, surrealism, pop & even graffiti. Soft, feathery spray meets scrawled sketches and childlike doodles to create layered, considered compositions, which whilst abstract still firmly allude to a human world.~~Sharing a similar approach, Lorenço’s expressive, expansive canvases allude to the adventure of painting itself; the exploration of its materiality. A catalogue of varying marks and surfaces lift from both representational image and the act of painting itself, as smooth, seductive surfaces are striated by what appear to be clean, almost digital doodles. However, as we delve deeper inside these works we are able to appreciate a much looser, expressive hand - the work of a painter who is clearly tenacious, confident and above all having fun. Together, these bold, uninhibited gestures combine to build surreal, vaguely apocalyptic landscapes that are suffused with pathetic fallacy.~~This apocalyptic feel is emphasised by Blake Hart-Wilson’s dominating Gesamtkunstwerk Coming Up For Air, which takes centre-stage in the show. Hart-Wilson’s experience as a DJ and working in the Ad world results in a practice that sits somewhere between abstract expressionism and set design. Channelling the gritty clubs of Glasgow & Edinburgh, Hart-Wilson constructs a grimy monolith that speaks to nightclub culture, cinema and the ultimate, unsettling hidden underworld that exists in our societies. The spectator becomes a participant, freely moving into and around the work to create an experience that for each person is solitary and unique - one of negative capability.~~At first, the glowing perfection of Caja Boogers’ works feels somewhat at odds with Hart-Wilson’s dark, gloomy and oppressive intervention. However, on closer inspection, the surface of Boogers’ works are also scrawled with scratches and imperfections - a reflection of an unsettling and hidden truth once more. Boogers’ references old analogue pictures from personal family albums, as well as public archives to reflect on daily life in the former Dutch East Indies. His interest for these albums originates from the conversations he had with his grandparents, wherein they had shared stories of how their lives were back then. This is somewhat unusual, with these histories often scratched out and covered up - prevented from being passed on to the next generation. Together, Boogers’ diptych reflects a collective sentimentality of a bygone, and somewhat erased era.~~Evan Mazellan’s works also look to erase, employing Photoshop editing tools that leave behind marks and traces that mimic the scars and trauma of cosmetic surgery. After applying these methods, Magellan creates paintings that highlight the edited alterations, underscoring the limitations of the artist’s ability with each tool. Similar to the outcome of many cosmetic surgeries, these paintings, instead of diverting attention from imperfections, result in crude change that emphasises imperfections that were meant to be fixed. This erasure also nods towards privacy and absence. Eroded in the present day, Mazellan reevaluates the notion of privacy in the nightmarish reality of seemingly unlimited access to people’s lives.~~Mike Olin’s works in contrast feel open and free, acting as somewhat of a diary for his own lived experience. Lifting from a collection of materials and detritus, Olin creates visually rich paintings that reference abstraction, landscape, surface texture and reflected light. These works layer symbols, media and materials, recreating the sensation of image overload - a nod to contemporary image culture and privacy. Olin’s paintings have an incredible density and energy, forcing the viewer to take in the numerous signs and icons simultaneously, resulting in new readings and interpretations.~~Lyndon Barrois Jr’s diverse practice uses magazines, advertising, cinema, and vernacular imagery as primary subjects of inquiry, translating the language of printing and design layout into a variety of formal and material juxtapositions. The Star Spangled Banner littered throughout Olin’s work is echoed in Barrois’ Brown Paper Flag Test, which plays on the historic brown paper bag test, used to discriminate against people whose skin complexion was the same or darker than a brown paper bag. Merged with a CMYK wave pattern, the work comments on racial hierarchy and colorism as a constructed reality.
Lyndon Barrois Jr.
Brown Paper Flag Test, 2017~Ink, butcher paper, laser print, enamel pin, laminated chipboard, cedar frame, 61x107cm
Lyndon Barrois Jr.
Print Preview, 2024~Solvent transfers, chipboard, collage, oil-tined solvent transfer on copper, primed linen mounted to panel, artist’s frame, 48x38cm
Caja Boogers
Untitled (Retelling), 2024~Oil and acrylic paste on linen, 180x130cm / 21x15cm (diptych)
Blake Hart-Wilson
Coming up for Air #1, 2023-24~Mixed Media Installation, Room: 220x207x257cm, Control Station: 79x134x70 cm
Lorenço
Essay on Bacchanalia, 2024~Oil on linen, 155x170cm
Evan Mazellan & Sangun Park
Dream of Accompanying, 2023~Oil on canvas, 100x150cm
Mike Olin
Red Cylinders, 2020~Oil and mixed media on linen, 43x33cm
Mike Olin
Pink Creode, 2022~Oil and mixed media on linen, 43x33cm
Huey Ruckus
Volcano, 2024~Acrylic, oil stick, spray paint on canvas, 120x150cm
Chilli
1 Adelaide Road, Chalk Farm
London, NW3 3QE
By appointment only
info@chilliartprojects.com