VERNACULAR HANGOVER: BEN COVE

About

'Vernacular Hangover' is an exhibition of new work by Ben Cove conceived for the Acme Project Space. New paintings will be hung on top of, and alongside, large-scale reproductions of American press photographs from an early 1970s Primitive Art exhibition. Cove's work examines the physical and social legacies of Modernist practices and its associated languages. Initially trained in architecture, earlier work utilised a broad range of media to focus on particular strains of Modernist architecture and design. These concerns have expanded out in the painting language that Cove has developed over recent years into an exploration of seemingly incongruous phenomena; the universal and the vernacular, the functional and the decorative, brashness and sobriety, abstraction and representation. Always aware of the physicality of the painting as an object, Cove's paintings are often made to be hung in conjunction with other elements. Several works in the show will consist of paintings which sit alongside partially painted, wall and floor mounted plywood structures.