Dexter Dalwood: 2059
Simon Lee Gallery, Hong Kong
Through October 30, 2021
DEXTER DALWOOD
2059, 2020
Oil on canvas, 60 x 72 cm (23 5/8 x 28 3/8 in.)
Courtesy of the artist and Simon Lee Gallery
Simon Lee Gallery presents a series of new paintings by British artist DEXTER DALWOOD on the occasion of his second exhibition at the Hong Kong space.
In these recent works, Dexter Dalwood looks nearly four decades into the future, to the year 2059; something that the title of each painting in the exhibition makes reference to. In spite of this nominative forward-looking approach, the artist resumes his longstanding commitment to the construction and interpretation of history in painting: each work is composed out of a network of interrelated references and sources from across the annals of art, politics, literature, as well as Dexter Dalwood’s own biography. The mix of brutalism and elegance, the old and the new depicted in this latest series creates visual paradoxes that echo a version of the future that simultaneously reflects on the present.
Although Dexter Dalwood’s lexicon remains deeply embedded in the history painting genre, these new works dispense with diagrammatic attitudes towards pictorial space, instead bringing together various, often disparate, elements. Ultimately, Dexter Dalwood prioritises the overall consonance of the painting over any preconceived notion of composition, sacrificing linear perspective in the pursuit of an overall approach to painting as object that takes negative space, the edge of the canvas and the temperament of the paint – amongst other elements – into account.
Nonetheless, Dexter Dalwood continues to allude to the art-historical canon: each work is similar in scale to Jean-Siméon Chardin’s The House of Cards, offering compositional references both to this painting and Cezanne’s The Card Players. Appearing throughout the series is a circular motif that materialises in astronomical configurations of planets, or as in 2059 (portal), a classical still life fruit bowl. From Giotto’s perfect, free-hand O to a symbolic link between heaven and earth, the circle in art history conjures a myriad of associations. Painted over the course of the past year, Dexter Dalwood communicates with this imagery something of the insularity of life and the circularity of existence.
DEXTER DALWOOD was born in 1960 and lives and works in London, UK. He received his BFA from Central Saint Martins, London and his MFA from the Royal College of Art, London. Recent solo exhibitions include What is Really Happening, Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK (2019); Propaganda Painting, Simon Lee Gallery, Hong Kong (2016); London Paintings, Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK (2014); Dexter Dalwood, Kunsthaus, Centre PasquArt, Biel, Switzerland (2013); Orientalism, David Risley Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark (2012); Dichter und Drogen, Nolan Judin, Berlin, Germany (2011) and a major solo exhibition Dexter Dalwood, Tate St Ives, UK (2010), which travelled to FRAC Champagne Ardenne, Reims, France and CAC, Malaga, Spain (2013). Recent group exhibitions have included Marx Collection, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany (2018); Painters' Painters at Saatchi Gallery, London, UK (2016); Mon art à moi, Centre PasquArt, Biel, Switzerland (2016); The Painting Show, a touring exhibition by The British Council, London, UK which travelled to Limerick City Gallery of Art, Limerick, Ireland (2017) and CAC, Vilnius, Lithuania (2016); Fighting History, Tate Britain, London, UK (2015); The Venice Syndrome – The Grandeur and Fall in the Art of Venice, Gammel Holtegaard, Denmark (2014), Not Being Attentive I Notice Everything: Robert Walser and the Visual Arts, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Switzerland (2014); Le Corps de l'Absence, FRAC Champagne Ardennes, Reims, France, Setting the Scene, Tate Modern, London, UK (2012); and Dublin Contemporary, Dublin, Ireland (2011). His work is in major private and public collections including Tate, London, UK, The British Council Collection, London, UK, The Saatchi Gallery, London, UK, FRAC Champagne-Ardennes, Reims, France and Centre PasquArt, Biel, Switzerland. In 2021 Dexter Dalwood presents solo exhibitions in Mexico at Museo Nacional de Arte (MUNAL), Mexico City and Centro de las Artes San Agustín, Oaxaca in 2022.
SIMON LEE GALLERY HONG KONG
304, 3/F The Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central, Hong Kong
