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GAVIN NOLAN
A King’s Gambit Accepted
Private
View:
Thursday March 18th 6.30pm–8.30pm
Exhibition
Dates:
Friday March 19th – Saturday April 24th
2010
Gallery
Hours:
Wednesday–Saturday 11am–6pm or by
appointment
Gavin
Nolan
'Rhythm of Cruelty'
Oil on
canvas
184x154cm
2010
CHARLIE SMITH london is delighted to
present Gavin Nolan with his first London one
person show since 2006.
Nolan
has become internationally known for his brutal self portraits
and portraits of those around him. More recently, however, the
artist has begun to depict historical figures of consequence,
leading on from his abject painting 'Portrait as the
Suicide of Robert Benjamin Haydon Attempt no. 3', where a
self portrait is superimposed onto the death mask of Benjamin
Haydon, complete with gunshot wound and open slits to the
throat.
Gavin
Nolan
'Suicide Blonde'
Oil on
canvas
31x25.5cm
2010
For
'A King's Gambit Accepted' the artist has created a
collection that continues to draw on historical figures, and
in particular those who have committed suicide or chosen a
definitive path of action that drives them towards an
inevitable death, for example Adolf Hitler, Jesus Christ,
Walter Benjamin and Ernest Hemingway. Nolan seeks to render
biographical aspects of the subject in the painted surface,
whilst aligning knowledge of their particular method of demise
to art historical references. And by investigating notions of
image and adornment in relation to interiority, the artist
explores aspects of the subjects’ private and public lives. A
revelatory sense of psychological turmoil, paranoia and
violence seeps out, with horror set against beauty and unease
underpinning precocity.
Gavin
Nolan
'Saviour Machine'
Oil on
canvas
30.5x25.5cm
2010
Corresponding with these notions are a consideration of
power and authority and their projection upon others, where a
public surfacing of one person’s private will can lead to
populations adhering to cults, religions and schools of
thought. We are encouraged to question the correlation between
fame, notoriety, death and even mental illness; the ensuing
relationships between them, and the consequent impact on
society and the individual. Ultimately Nolan serves to
emphasize how complex and interconnected are personal and
public histories, interior and external worlds, and how the
nature of a death can come to define a subject’s
life.
Gavin
Nolan
'Untitled'
41x30.5cm
Oil on
canvas
2010
Gavin
Nolan
'Why Kill when you can Kill Yourself'
Oil
on canvas
35.5x25.5cm
2010
An essay
by Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield has been written in accompaniment
with this exhibition:
'Choose life or
celebrate at the party of suicides’
‘And what a party: Walter Benjamin, Jesus
Christ, Joseph Goebbels, Ernest Hemingway, Adolf Hitler,
Marilyn Monroe, Sylvia Plath, Socrates, Virginia Woolf. There
are no painters here, though according to the filmmaker
Jean-Luc Godard they top the table of suiciding
artists…’
Biography
Born:
1977
Education:
1999 – 2002: MA in
Fine Art, Royal Academy Schools
1996 – 1999: BA
(Hons) in Fine Art, Loughborough University School of
Art
One Person
Exhibitions:
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:
2010: The Reflected Gaze, Torrance
Art Museum, Torrance
2009: The Future Can Wait, Old Truman
Brewery, London
2008: The Past is History, Changing
Role Gallery, Naples & Rome
New
London School, Mark Moore Gallery, Los Angeles
2006: Icons, Chungking Projects, Los
Angeles
Half
Life, Fieldgate Gallery,
London
2005: Maji Jabii!! Fucking
Brilliant!!, Tokyo Wondersite, Tokyo
Carter
Presents, Carter Presents, London
New London Kicks, Wooster Projects, New York
The Deviants, Sartorial Contemporary Art, London
The Sun Also Rises, Rockwell, London
Faux
Realism Part 1+2, Rockwell & Royal Academy Pumphouse,
London
Darkest Hour, Club Mogadishni, Copenhagen
2004: Born, Cry, Eat, Shit, Fuck,
Die, Rockwell, London
Collections:
Marc Coucke, Ghent;
Jean Pigozzi, Geneva; David Roberts, London; Dr Rainer
Schiweck, Munich; Howard Tullman, Chicago; private collections
in Germany, United Kingdom & United States
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