Cosmic Laziness

About

The notebook is the central motif for Renshaw’s concise series of works on metal that present a variety of architectural painterly propositions. Hung in pairs, they operate much like the pages of a book; each ground at once implying the sense of an object of many layers and, collectively, a set of surfaces in conversation across the margins. 

Renshaw is known for his beautiful, meticulously manufactured paintings of Modern structures. In recent years he has been playing with the idea of the painted surface as page and form as notation, as part of his ongoing creation of a visual shorthand for organisational systems synonymous with the built environment. His hybrid entities leave one with the sense of having encountered them before, that they may already exist somewhere in the mind as a result of a previous encounter, whether in reality or reproduction.

Motifs once mirrored upon, or sharing the space of, a single surface have become twinned towns on separate grounds. This encourages investigation of the multiple layers of each image and of the painting as a possible entity that might be flipped through, or book-marked at a particular point of interest. The notebook also refers to the importance of research processes to Renshaw’s studio practice and the fact that the key architectural point of reference here is remembered, not from experience, but a photocopied image reproduced from a book.

Erb is interested in the legacy and new contemporary relevance of classical painting motifs. Her visceral images of loosely worked figurative elements appear like thoughts in the process of being worked out. In the Shed space, ‘The Sweet Lemon Ballad’ (2016), a characteristically surreal and darkly comic film, offers a glimpse into the artist’s studio life and provides a paint-loaded counterpoint to Renshaw’s ordered universe. The narrative follows the extraordinary adventures of a lemon freed from the confines of a still life – through the magic of Erb’s stop-frame animation techniques – as it goes about shedding a lifetime of art-historical baggage.

Copies of ‘The Phenomenology of a Lemon’, Stefan Zweifel’s essay on Erb’s film, and ‘The Page’, Rebecca Geldard’s essay on Renshaw, will be available in the gallery.

Klodin Erb lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland, and has exhibited at home and internationally. Her work features in many collections worldwide. Recent exhibitions include: 2018, Die Wolfslaterne, Kunsthaus Pasquart, Bienne, Switzerland (catalogue), With Other Eyes, Lullin + Ferrari, Zurich, Switzerland, Ein langer Tag, Helvetia Art Foyer, Basel, Switzerland; 2017, Yellow Creature. Aspekte der Transformation, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland, The Show Must Go On, Kunstmuseum Bern, Berne, Switzerland (online catalogue); Die Augen der Bilder – Portraits from Fragonard to Dumas, Museum Langmatt, Baden, Switzerland (catalogue); 2014 Docking Station, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Switzerland (exhibition app) and Armory Presents, with Rotwand, at the Armory Show, New York in 2013. 

http://klodinerb.com

Tim Renshaw lives and works in London, and has exhibited at home and internationally. Recent exhibitions include: Imagining Architecture isdaT, Toulouse, France, 2018; Fully Awake, Royal College of Art, London, 2018;  Plan/Unplan, Stephen Lawrence Gallery, London, 2017; Notebook Architecture, Kunstgriff, Zurich, Switzerland, 2017; Shed, Naming Rights, London, 2016; Distressed Geometry, Kunstraum, Baden, Switzerland, 2015: John Moores Painting Prize, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 2014; One and One and One Part 2, K3 Projects, Zurich, Switzerland, 2012. Renshaw organises exhibitions with the group Outside Architecture

www.outsidearchitecture.org