More Nudes in Colour
Keith Farquhar
1 October – 4 December 2010
Keith Farquhar
More Nudes in Colour, 2010
Installation view, all works: Inkjet on cardboard cut-out and cardboard plinth
Courtesy of the artist and HOTEL Gallery, London
Keith Farquhar
More Nudes in Colour, 2010
Installation view, all works: Inkjet on cardboard cut-out and cardboard plinth
Courtesy of the artist and HOTEL Gallery, London
Keith Farquhar
Glazed Hips, 2010
Inkjet on cardboard cut-out and cardboard plinth
Courtesy of the artist and HOTEL Gallery, London
Studio Voltaire is pleased to announce a new large-scale commission by the Scottish artist Keith Farquhar. The exhibition will be his first solo presentation in a public gallery in London.
More Nudes in Colour presents an ongoing series of works which mark an exciting development in the artist’s practice. Each new piece begins with paint spontaneously applied to a naked model. The results are photographed producing images reminiscent of nudes from classical antiquity; the painted skin often emulating marble, wood-grain or other materials from which figurative sculpture is traditionally made. The images are then fabricated as life-sized cardboard cut-outs (similar to those found in cinemas promoting the current releases) and exhibited on custom-made plinths of the same material. Farquhar refers to these finished works as flat-pack statues.
Production starts in Farquhar's studio with an improvised series of actions, reminiscent of particular 1970’s performance practices that forefront the body as a site of engagement. Referencing both Yves Klein and Jackson Pollock in it's painterliness, the work also evokes Hippy body painting and certain coffee-table erotica books such as Charles Gatewood’s
Messy Girls! and Richard Kern’s
New York Girls. Those familiar with Farquhar’s work will note the trademark economy by which multiple, disparate references are impacted within one unified, elegantly realised solution. With
More Nudes in Colour, the distillation process is intensified within the flat-pack, kit formation of each finished piece: What begins with a wholly physical, messy and chance-filled endeavour culminates in a series of concise, dematerialised artworks that can literally fold away to nothing.
The project is made in partnership with two galleries: Tramway, Glasgow and Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea. As the second part of the project, the artist will make a new offsite commission for Focal Point Gallery that will in some ways be context specific to Southend. This will open in Spring 2011. The exhibition at Studio Voltaire will subsequently tour to Tramway, Glasgow in 2011.
Keith Farquhar (Born 1969, Scotland) is based in Edinburgh. He has had numerous solo exhibitions including Crescent Artspace, Scarborough (2008); Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh (2006); Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2005); NyeHaus, New York (2005) and Neu Galerie, Berlin (2005). Selected group exhibitions include Hotel, London (2009); Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe (2008); David Zwirner, New York (2004); Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (2003). The artist is represented by Hotel, London and Galerie Neu, Berlin.
www.keithfarquhar.co.uk
In partnership with Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea and Tramway, Glasgow
Supported by The Hope Scott Trust and Hugo Brow
