Kingsgate Gallery presents A Swarming Talkative Presence. In Patrick Lundberg’s work, sets of painted pins and shoelace lines implicate the surrounding architecture in their viewing, requiring a reading of space not confined to the objects themselves. Despite the pins’ dispersive arrangements, the delicately coloured balls operate as closed sets; though their positioning in relation to one another is totally open, not a single ball can be added or taken away. There is a loftiness to Lundberg’s form of abstraction, but also something incredibly down-to-earth. Yet the quotidian isn’t just played out through the choice of materials: it is also present in the way the work seems to refer to experiences of beauty found more often embedded in the world at large than in the rarefied viewing conditions of the art world.

The immersive verticals of Lundberg’s shoelaces are echoed in the lines of Sam Rountree Williams’ Big Face paintings, and also in Oliver Perkins’ dowel stick works. The latter, glued by colour and reinforced with staples into the canvas, provide a robust physical affirmation of the line. Whether stapled to a painting, held by a pin or painted by hand, line exists in each of the artists’ practices not as a benign nod to historical precedent, but as an idiosyncratic approach to experiential qualities.

In Rountree Williams’ paintings, restraint and formality are in constant tension with something strangely personal. Messy subjectivity is always pushing its way through the cracks in good craft, formal subtlety and a characteristic sparseness. His Big Faces claim significance for a style of drawing most closely resembling doodles or cartoons. The dramatically enlarged and meticulously rendered recreations of casually-drawn characters evoke the imaginings of children, yet they have a gravity, both psychological and pictorial, that belies this association.

Perkins’ work investigates the structure of the painted object while embracing the material poetics that spring up along the way. The devices he employs often elaborate on the basic procedures involved in making a painting, for example in his use of a second stretcher implanted within the first, pressing up against the canvas surface from behind. Recently, using rabbit-skin glue coloured with ink or watercolour, Perkins’ choice of media has dictated the speed at which he works, forcing shifts in tempo that result in rhythmic variations between canvases. His paintings, often presented in a series, offer a diverse array of forms that both in themselves, and en masse, demonstrate a vital tension between containment and potential.

Kingsgate Gallery
110-116 Kingsgate Road
London NW6 2JG United Kingdom
Ph. +44 (0)20 73287878
mail@kingsgateworkshops.org.uk
www.kingsgateworkshops.org.uk

Opening hours
Friday - Sunday
From 12pm to 6pm