Press Release
| GAVIN NOLAN | Hype Trace |
| Exhibition Dates : Friday 15 April – Saturday 14 May 2016 |
| CHARLIE SMITH LONDON is delighted to present Gavin Nolan’s third one-person exhibition at the gallery. Nolan’s recent paintings depict versions of historical figures. Combining hyper-realism with abstraction and mark making, his mostly intimate oil paintings reveal the heroic and fragile nature of the subjects and meditate on creativity, language, legacy and obsolescence. Focusing on iconic 20th century figures of note, Nolan’s current work examines his own relationship with the past. His interest in the inception of political, cultural and intellectual movements leads to an examination of their subsequent effects; and the echoes of an individual’s thoughts and actions that have moulded the modern period. Pictorial content and abstraction vie for supremacy in these paintings where the hyper-real masquerades as fact and the abstract plays the role of the unknown or intangible. Displaying an exceptional facility for handling both tendencies, Nolan asserts via painterly language that historical truth is elusive and information is filtered. Engaging with this slippage, Nolan seeks to remove the depiction of a subject from the reality of the original. The painting as object becomes its own peculiar, temporal fact. By imagining characteristics and simultaneously projecting himself onto his subjects, Nolan suggests the paintings serve as meditations on the self as well as those depicted. In combination with a restricted palette that hints at nostalgic recollection, and by referencing his own early work, the figures inhabiting this collection might be phantasmal or undead - haunting our present as they fade in and out of time and being. Gavin Nolan is a contemporary Welsh artist. Born in Aberdare, he was educated at Loughborough University and Royal Academy Schools, London. After graduating from the RA he went on to become one of the founding members of Rockwell Gallery in Hackney, London, which was from 2002-2007 an influential artists’ run space. He has had solo exhibitions in London and Los Angeles and continues to show internationally. His work is housed in prominent private collections globally. |
Biography
| EDUCATION | ||
| 1999-2002 | Post-Graduate Diploma Fine Art | Royal Academy Schools, London |
| 1996-1999 | BA (Hons) Fine Art | Loughborough University School of Art |
| ONE PERSON EXHIBITIONS | ||
| 2016 | Hype Trace | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2013 | Mise en Abyme | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2010 | A King’s Gambit Accepted | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2009 | Hexen Reflex | Mark Moore Gallery, Los Angeles |
| 2006 | Unnatural Selection | Sartorial Contemporary Art, London |
| SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS | ||
| 2016 | Black Paintings (curated by Heike Strelow) | Galerie Heike Strelow, Frankfurt |
| 2015 | Black Paintings (curated by Zavier Ellis) | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2015 | Die English Kommen! – New Painting from London (curated by Zavier Ellis) | Galerie Heike Strelow, Frankfurt |
| 2014 | Saatchi Gallery & Channel 4’s New Sensations and THE FUTURE CAN WAIT (curated by Zavier Ellis, Simon Rumley & Rebecca Wilson) | B1, Victoria House, London |
| 2014 | Cultus Deorum (curated by Zavier Ellis) | Saatchi Gallery, London |
| 2012 | Saatchi Gallery & Channel 4’s New Sensations and THE FUTURE CAN WAIT (curated by Zavier Ellis, Simon Rumley & Rebecca Wilson) | B1, Victoria House, London |
| 2012 | Polemically Small (curated by Zavier Ellis & Edward Lucie- Smith) | Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham |
| 2012 | The Id, the Ego and the Superego (curated by Zavier Ellis & Marcella Munteanu) | BRAUBACHfive, Frankfurt |
| 2011 | Saatchi Gallery & Channel 4’s New Sensations and THE FUTURE CAN WAIT (curated by Zavier Ellis, Simon Rumley & Rebecca Wilson) | B1, Victoria House, London |
| 2011 | Polemically Small (curated by Edward Lucie-Smith) | Klaipeda Culture Communication Centre, Klaipeda |
| 2011 | THE FUTURE CAN WAIT presents: Polemically Small (curated by Zavier Ellis, Edward Lucie-Smith, Max Presneill & Simon Rumley) | Torrance Art Museum, Torrance |
| 2011 | Attraction of the Opposites (curated by Kiki Petratou) | CUCOSA, Rotterdam |
| 2010 | THE FUTURE CAN WAIT (curated by Zavier Ellis & Simon Rumley) | Shoreditch Town Hall, London |
| 2010 | Papyrophilia | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2010 | The Reflected Gaze | Torrance Art Museum, Torrance |
| 2009 | THE FUTURE CAN WAIT (curated by Zavier Ellis & Simon Rumley) | Old Truman Brewery, London |
| 2009 | New London School (curated by Zavier Ellis & Simon Rumley) | Galerie Schuster, Berlin |
| 2008 | THE FUTURE CAN WAIT (curated by Zavier Ellis & Simon Rumley) | Old Truman Brewery, London |
| 2008 | The Past is History (curated by Zavier Ellis & Simon Rumley) | Changing Role Gallery, Rome/Naples |
| 2008 | New London School (curated by Zavier Ellis & Simon Rumley) | Mark Moore Gallery, Los Angeles |
| 2007 | THE FUTURE CAN WAIT (curated by Zavier Ellis & Simon Rumley) | Old Truman Brewery, London |
| 2006 | Icons | Chungking Projects, Los Angeles |
| 2006 | Half Life | Fieldgate Gallery, London |
| 2006 | New Figurative Realism | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2006 | People Like Us | No More Grey, London |
| 2005 | Maji Jabii!! Fucking Brilliant!! | Tokyo Wondersite, Tokyo |
| 2005 | Carter Presents | Carter Presents, London |
| 2005 | New London Kicks | Wooster Projects, New York |
| 2005 | The Deviants | Sartorial Contemporary Art, London |
| 2005 | The Sun Also Rises | Rockwell, London |
| 2005 | Faux Realism Part 1+2 | Rockwell & Royal Academy Pumphouse, London |
| 2005 | Darkest Hour | Leisure Club Mogadishni, Copenhagen |
| 2004 | Horizon of Expectation | Empire Gallery, London |
| 2004 | Born, Cry, Eat, Shit, Fuck, Die | Rockwell, London |
| BIBLIOGRAPHY | ||
| 2011 | “The Face of Jesus”, Edward Lucie-Smith | |
| 2011 | “The Saatchi Gallery & Channel 4’s New Sensations and THE FUTURE CAN WAIT”, Exhibition Catalogue | |
| 2011 | “3 Worlds in 1”, Exhibition Catalogue | |
| 2009 | “New Masters of Paint: today’s top contemporary painters”, Modern Edition | |
| 2009 (Jun) | “Ten New Artists you should really Have Heard of by Now”, GQ Magazine | |
| 2008 | “THE FUTURE CAN WAIT”, Exhibition Catalogue | |
| 2006 | “Rockwell Space and Artists”, Modern Painters | |
| 2005 (May) | Review, Time Out Magazine | |
| 2005 (Mar) | Feature, Miser and Now Magazine, Keith Talent Gallery, London | |
| 2004 | “Liberal Intervention: The Empires New Clothes?”, Allegra Stratton & James Lindon (eds), Aitchess Press | |
| 2003 (Jul/Aug) | “Friends in High Places”, Art Review | |
| COLLECTIONS | ||
| Marc Coucke, Ghent | ||
| Jean Pigozzi, Geneva | ||
| David Roberts, London | ||
| Dr Rainer Schiweck, Munich | ||
| The SØR Rusche Collection, Oelde / Berlin | ||
| Howard Tullman, Chicago | ||
| Private collections in France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom & United States | ||