Exhibition

Double Dutch

2 Jul 2016 – 29 Aug 2016

Event times

Wednesday - Sunday, 11am - 4pm (and bank holidays)

Cost of entry

Free entry

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Aspex

Portsmouth, United Kingdom

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Travel Information

  • The Hard Interchange is is five minutes walk through Gunwharf Quays
  • Portsmouth Harbour Station is five minutes walk through Gunwharf Quays
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Aspex is proud to present 'Double Dutch', the recent work of the artist Ben Cove. It is with a mixture of sadness and celebration that we honour the promised exhibition that was programmed before Ben’s unexpected and untimely death from a short illness.

About

Aspex is proud to present 'Double Dutch', the recent work of the artist Ben Cove. It is with a mixture of sadness and celebration that we honour the promised exhibition that was programmed before Ben’s unexpected and untimely death from a short illness.

Working with Ben’s sister, Melanie, we are excited to present a new installation that Ben had planned with his usual meticulous attention to detail. We feel happy to have been able to realise his intentions.

Cove’s work explores the nature of painting and the object by installing paintings within large found images and sculptures. These investigate ideas of the constructed world, with reference to a broad range of influences, including 20th century modern architecture, art, design, museology and furniture, which Cove referred to looking at “out of the corner of my eye”. 

The resulting works bring an innovative interpretation as Cove kept his influences at bay and challenged himself to work more and more intuitively. Cove’s choice of colour is celebratory and appealing and yet within this palette neon colours jar to invigorate the work. Structural shapes define areas, extended with wooden oak sculptures and reliefs that encourage the viewer to explore the work from all angles.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m a painter, I don’t describe myself as a painter specifically, I’d say that I was an artist who happens to use quite a lot of paint.”

– Ben Cove interviewed by Morgan Quaintance for Resonance FM, Studio Visit, 10 January 2016

Melanie Cove said of her brother’s work: “Ben was an experimental artist who explored video, installation, sculpture and drawing but could not resist returning again and again to paint. His inquisitive nature pushed him to re-approach painting at different points in his career bringing an exciting freshness to his practice. His recent works, shown here, sing with a joy of colour and form whilst playing with depth and surface. The elegance of the final paintings, however, conceals radical reworking which took confidence, which Ben revealed in the time-lapse films he made of the paintings’ evolution. This, for me sums up my brother, as well as his work; calm and composed on the surface but continually striving to be remade better.” 

Ben Cove studied architecture at the University of Nottingham prior to completing a further BA in Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University. In 2008 he was also awarded an MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Recent solo projects have included Modern Language, Peter von Kant Gallery, London; Ben Cove, Three Works Project Space, Dorset; and Vernacular Hangover, Acme Project Space, London. He has been included in many recent group shows in the UK, Japan, Germany and Canada including: The London Open, Whitechapel Gallery, 2015; Indefinable Cities, Airspace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent and Art Takahashi, Hikone, Japan, 2015 and has been selected for the John Moores Painting Prize 2016 on display at the Walker Art Gallery Liverpool 9 July – 27 November 2016.

The exhibition will be open to the public from 2 July 2016, with a preview on Friday 1 July, 6 – 8pm.

Exhibiting artistsToggle

Ben Cove

Taking part

Esmée Fairbairn Foundation

Esmée Fairbairn Foundation

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