[dropcap style=”font-size:100px;color:#992211;”]C[/dropcap]adogan Contemporary present Now/here, a solo exhibition featuring new work by the acclaimed abstract British artist Sam Lock.
Comprised of 15 medium- and large-scale paintings, as well as sculptures and a suite of works on paper, this is the artist’s largest presentation to date and his third with the gallery. The paintings are rendered in Lock’s trademark style. A canvas is prepared with gesso onto which layers of acrylic and household paint are applied and then manipulated — sanded, stained, scorched, sealed and torn — and also treated to the effects of a heat gun. The artist sees each canvas as a battleground, with the materials at war with one another. These collisions are orchestrated to some extent, but there is also a pervading element of chance and unpredictability, with paint colours changing due to unplanned physical and chemical interactions.
The sculptural works, which Lock describes as ‘containers of energy’, are created from sheets of copper and, as with the paintings, are treated as battlegrounds, being sprayed with nitrate to achieve extraordinary reactions, as well as exposed to blow-torches and a club hammer. Intrinsic to these works will be the plinths on which they are mounted, which will have mirrored surfaces, lending them a further optic dimension and the implication of what the artist calls ‘the presence of absence’.
A key inspiration for Lock is the written word, in particular the work of dramatists Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. As the latter famously said, ‘Underneath what is said, something else is being said’, and the ideas invoked in that observation — notions of double meanings, loss, discovery and the overlapping of past and present — are key to understanding Lock’s entire oeuvre. This interest in the written word is further evidenced in a series of book cover works, the source material for which was gifted by a local charity shop due to their condition making them ineligible for sale. Covers and pages are often missing, and their aged character speaks of the passage of time. They are stories in themselves.
Freddie Burness, director of Cadogan Contemporary, says: ‘While it is formed of three elements, all of the featured works in Now/here are united by Sam’s overarching fascination with excavating what lies under the surface of things, with the layers of life and meaning reflected quite literally in the architecture of each painting, sculpture and drawing. We are delighted to be staging a show by one of the most compelling abstract artists of his generation.’
Now/here will run at Cadogan Contemporary from 9 – 27 September
Naila Scargill is the publisher and editor of horror journal Exquisite Terror. Holding a broad editorial background, she has worked with an eclectic variety of content, ranging from film and the counterculture, to political news and finance.
