Printed Matter

Printed Matter

23^rd March to 4^th May 2012

Private view Thursday 22^nd March, 6 to 8pm

Eleven is delighted to present an exhibition of limited edition prints featuring work by prominent contemporary artists including Peter Blake, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Sarah Morris, Grayson Perry, Marc Quinn and George Shaw.  The exhibition also includes gallery published prints by Kent Christensen, Daisy de Villeneuve, Natasha Law, Ben Turnbull and Jonathan Yeo. Prints act as an important avenue for an artist to make their work more widely available. The production of prints is a practice the gallery has supported and encouraged since opening in 2005.

Peter Blake’s Marilyn (2010) depicts the star at the peak of her appeal. Blake highlights the starlet’s trademark features - her luscious red lips, perfectly coifed blonde hair, and sensual gaze. The print is covered in diamond dust further remarking on her timeless celebrity.

Jake & Dinos Chapman’s Etchasketchathon etching series (2005) perverts children’s colouring books, turning innocent scenes into gruesome nightmares. Mixing found imagery with intricate drawings; each image evokes a hellish childhood where kids, bears and clowns become dangerous creatures ready for the worst.

Kent Christensen’s prints playfully satirise modern life, where indulgence is the new god. His depictions of sweets and culinary delights investigate cultural and personal associations with food, as well as the tradition of still-life painting.

Daisy de Villeneuve’s stylish illustrations have adorned t-shirts, shoeboxes, bags, homeware and packaging, turning her fine art into emblems of mass produced enterprises. Not only representing aspects of popular culture, her quirky signature style has become a part of the very fabric of it.

Damien Hirst prints encompass some of Hirst’s most popular motifs. A kaleidoscopic array of butterflies form Altar from Sanctum (2009). Set against a flat black background these colourful specimens appear to be carefully collected and arranged to create a psychedelic vision of mortality and death. Tryptophan (2010) is among Hirst’s inexhaustible series of spot paintings and prints. Each reflects a highly manufactured process yet they are crafted so no two colours are the same.

Gary Hume’s calming cool colours and white splatters of surf inform Seahorse (1998). Typical of Hume’s style, he begins with a photograph which he crops to create graphic images implicit of its figurative roots. Through employing his distinguishing flat colours and clean organic lines the abstracted image emerges injected with a human presence.

Natasha Law's signature semi-nudes work as snapshots of the intimate. They capture a moment, whether posed or spontaneous and allude to the intimacy of domestic spaces her models inhabit. Alternating between the traditional genres of nude and portraiture, Law’s lines emphasise her model’s uniqueness and exalt an essence of femininity.

Sarah Morris’s Department of Water and Power (Los   Angeles) is inspired by Mondrian’s geometric abstraction as she graphically decodes the semiotics of our built environments. Using vibrant lines and bold blocks of colour, she pushes beyond the physical structures and urban planning as she uncovers societal relationships and the consciousness of the city.

Grayson Perry uses the medieval mappa mundi model to chart his beliefs and social commentary in Map of Nowhere (2008). In immense detail, he satirically comments on current events and the paraphernalia of modern life. From people praying to corporations to tabloid catch phrases strategically placed within the work, Perry utilises an antiquated craft to enlighten our contemporary world.

Marc Quinn’s Six Moments of Sunrise (2008) explores the traditional genre of still life. Quinn pairs vivid flowers and luscious ripe fruit to create a colourful still. However, on closer inspection their artifice emerges. Depicting these organic materials in an enticing arrangement in the apex of their beauty, he preserves their elegance and dismisses the decaying process.

Ben Turnbull’s A.C.M.E (2010) reflects his fascination by the global dominance of American culture.  His works unsettling effects result from re-presenting the toys of our innocent youth in symbolic forms that reveal the shocking truths about war, death and guns in the world’s most powerful country.

George Shaw’s images are taken from his extensive archive of photographs from the Tile Estate near Coventry where he grew up and is setting for all his work. Intricate webs of branches and the misty nature of environment renders an everyday scene as something mysterious and highly atmospheric. 

Jonathan Yeo is known for his distinguished portrait paintings of high-profile sitters from celebrities to dignitaries. Yeo’s painterly patches of colour have served as a point of departure for transforming his traditional portraits. In Bush (2007) he trades his brush strokes for erotic scraps of flesh from pornography magazines to craft this influential political figure.

For further information on Printed Matter or forthcoming exhibitions at Eleven please contact Susannah Haworth on 020 7823 5540 or on susannah@elevenfineart.com