Reflections
Jungwon Jay Hur - Margarita Frančeska Ieva Loze - Rachel Lonsdale - Tom Mead
Curated by Adela Blanco
Blanco Gallery is delighted to present ‘Reflections’. An exhibition of figurative painting, sculpture, installation and performance from emerging artists Jungwon Jay Hur, Margarita Frančeska leva Loze, Rachel Lonsdale and Tom Mead. Curated by Adela Blanco.
The artists reflect on their memories in comparison to the reality of now, to look upon their pasts with the knowledge of the future in mind. With an attempt to hold on to what has been lost, a melancholic, warped form of nostalgia remains. The narrative-focused artists bring a familiar yet corrupted echo to life, that comes from reflecting on past memories or projecting these emotions onto vaguely sentimental
objects and forms, where a viewer may recognise elements from a distance, creating a feeling of knowing that becomes uncanny or disrupted on a closer inspection. Sometimes clinging to visuals and ideology from childhood and cinema, the artwork juxtaposes this imagery from what the artists try to ignore, the truth of growing up; the rising costs, the worsening climate, the lowering living standards.
The venues large lateral walls showcase work of Tom Mead, whose ‘glitched’ artwork explores the relationship between traditional painting and modern technology. The sense of movement creates scenes that are cinematic and personal, permeated with themes of identity and existentialism. Elements from the painted artwork are brought to life in sculptures, translating Mead’s distinctive style into three dimensions for the first time. Two of the gothic arches of the gallery display the paintings and ceramic work of Jungwon Jay Hur , pieces that work together to further her narrative of melancholy, longing and intimacy. Taking inspiration from Korean and Western folk music, as well as 50s-90s European cinema, Jay’s work features female figures that may not be self-portraits, but through the process of painting allow a path for self-reflection. Margarita Frančeska Ieva Loze has also translated motifs from her hand drawn animated work into sculptures, with two monochromatic creatures displayed, evoking more perceived narrative that becomes universal with its ambiguity. Written in response to the site, Rachel Lonsdale creates absurdist narratives where language and gesture precedes over image. Rachel questions the environments she
encounters, creating a subversion of space through performance and text.
Adela Blanco, Rachel Lonsdale & Tom Mead.
Exhibition is open from the 18th - 25th November
10:00am to 6:00pm at Islington Arts Factory.
2 Parkhurst Rd,
London
N7 0SF
Private View Friday 18th 6:30 - 8:30pm
‘There is literally no edge of the sun/ my carpet has no edges’
performance by Rachel Lonsdale at 7:30pm
The Artists
Jungwon Jay Hur
Jay works across painting, printmaking, and ceramics. Vulnerability, honesty, intimacy, and the beauty of triviality (or modesty) are values in the work of art which she believes in and tries to convey through her practice. Her recent work is influenced by Korean and Western folk music with its nature being storytelling as well as European cinema from the late 50’s–90’s. The images in her work depict female figures (fictional or real, like Virginia Woolf) and through their representation, Jay projects a persona that if it is not an immediate self-portrait, creates a path for self-reflection.
The sense of melancholy, longing, and pausing that resides in her paintings stems from her interest in the idea of painting as an act of surrendering (holding on and letting go) and as a language of loss (a fine balance between accumulation and loss). In her autobiographical
approach to painting, she understands painting in relation to human relationships. Layers of paint can be perpetually added layer upon layer onto the surface as accumulation of information and emotions (like human relationships do), and therefore, develop an image.
Through stripping down layers of paints in the process of creation, she understands loss as the way to process the reverie of past layers and images, to process her own experience, and to gain meanings. Through practicing surrendering her desire for a painting to serve her in selfishly favourable way, she lets it live and serve its own autonomy without a maker’s controlling – just like how love in human relationships works. In fact, she believes that painting and love goes hand in hand with their shared nature, language and autonomy; the emotion, the phenomenon, the process that shall not be exploited by any wishful thinking.
Margarita Frančeska Ieva Loze
Margarita Frančeska Ieva Loze is an artist working across hand drawn stop motion, drawing, writing, embroidery and sculpture. She is interested in storytelling and looks at the themes connected to phenomenology, one's self, valueness, memory and mythology. By working interdiscilpinary she often uses found objects as a surface to create work on, and interacts with the space via installation. Margarita studied form textile design at Riga School of Art and Design in Latvia, before graduating BA(Hons) in Fine Art, Painting, at UAL Wimbledon College of Arts 2021. She is currently enrolled in MFA Fine Art at Kingston School of Art. In 2022, she was selected for Venice Fellowships Programme for the 59h International Art Exhibition, la Biennale de Venezia, 2022 to develop her proposed project while living in Venice and stewarding the British Pavilion for a duration of one month.
Rachel Lonsdale
Rachel Lonsdale is a multi-disciplinary artist. Rachel questions the environments that she encounters and creates narratives that exist in the form of performance, intervention, and text.Rachel is interested in the power play and hierarchy between language, gesture, tone, body and image. These mostly exist in the form of absurdist enquiry, stage directions, instructions, script writing, and captioning. She is interested in speech acts and instructions for the body to the point where language dismantles itself.
Tom Mead
Tom Mead is a London-based Artist specialising in figurative painting and sculpture.
“Portraits and figures have always been the main focus of my work. The fractured and overlapping nature of my work conveys a sense of life and movement over time, and explores the relationship between traditional painting and technology using 'glitches'.
Film has a huge influence on me, to compensate for my lack of camera knowledge I try to be a director in my paintings. This means planning a scene, composing the shot and deciding what would happen over a length of time, with themes such as identity and existentialism permeating throughout.
I specifically focus on people and the mindset from my own generation, and what it means to be a young person today. This includes careers, relationships, social media, and the expectations of 'growing up’.”
After completing his degree in Fine Art from Wimbledon College of Arts in 2019, Mead has found success in competitions and events such as Clyde&Co, ING Discerning Eye and the Art of London AR Gallery Trail. He has also been a finalist in the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize and SkyArts Portrait Artist of the Year. Notable commissioned sitters of Mead include Theo Faberge, Professor Green, Jazzie B, Laura Linney, Axel Ruger, Sarah Healey and Courtney Pine.