Conversions

About

The works of James Brooks and Thomas van Reghem presented in this exhibition offer a dialogue exploring the similarities and the differences in their approach to re-creating languages. In their work both artists seek to construct a new type of language that all of us can relate to and understand.

I, as a collector, have taken on this curatorial exercise in order to share my longstanding quest for meaning, linking art and language expressed through different forms of artistic practice. I am intrigued by how artists are drawn to explore it and I am often looking for the poetry that can subsequently emerge.

Both artists invite us to read their narratives and visualise their converted universes. The term ‘conversion’ has a multitude of meanings here, although the title of the exhibition was initially inspired by the title of a major Renaissance painting ’Conversion of St Paul’ that was once in my family’s collection. It is not the religious aspect that I would like to focus on, rather it is Thomas and James’ journey in converting what they read into poetic material and how they visualise the transformative elements of these conversions.