RUPERT SHRIVE | artists | exhibitions | mission | contact | home

                       text       exhibitions   press   RUPERT SHRIVE | artists | exhibitions | mission | contact | home              

 

                                                    
 

RUPERT SHRIVE

'Post Painting'
 

8th - 18th May 2008


The Old Truman Brewery
F Block First Floor
Ely's Yard
15 Hanbury Street
London E1 6QR

   Post Painting       Current exhibition
May 2008, Post Painting, Agent Morton, London

Forthcoming exhibitions
One Man Exhibitions in Kiev and Paris
Group Exhibition, May, Moscow World Fine Art Fair (Orel Gallery, Paris)

Recent solo exhibitions
April 2008, Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong
May 2007, Scream, London
March 2007, Glauco Cavaciuti, Milan
Nov 2006, Rita Castellote, Madrid

Recent group exhibitions
March 2008 ' Art Paris', Orel gallery
Jan 2008, Scream, London
Oct 2007, 'East West ', Orel, Paris
June 2007, ' Summer Scream ', Scream, London
Feb 2007, Art Madrid with Rita Castellote, Madrid
Oct 2006, Group show, Scream, London
Feb 2006, Art Madrid with Nikki Marquardt, Paris and Val
 		  

The Guardian UK, May 2007

Jalouse France, May 2007

Vogue France, May 2007

AD Italy, March 2007

Timesonline April 28 to May 4 2007

"MU" Spain, April 2007

Il Sole 24 Hore Italy, March 2007

              


Shrive's recent works are all three-dimensional paintings on paper - portrait heads presented as broken carapaces and iconoclastic revisions of familiar works by Picasso, Mondrian, Warhol and Johns. Sumptuously painted, intentionally damaged; they are psychologically arresting works, questioning accepted tenets of contemporary beauty and cultural interpretation.

The title 'Post painting', refers to the unique technique Shrive uses to redraw or reform a painting as it nears completion. First, he paints in acrylic on brown paper - from life, memory or reference - and then he takes the "finished" work and variously crushes, screws or rips it up, repeatedly reforming it in search of its ultimate incarnation.

By making two dimensions into three, Shrive effects an alchemy, turning painting into sculpture.The resulting reliefs erupt from a cyclical trinity of creation,destruction and recreation - it is a process fraught with risk that can end in triumphant success or miserable failure; the window of time available being so short that many paintings don't survive the treatment.


When applied to iconic works of contemporary art, this modus operandi becomes conceptually disruptive - when working from Warhol, the reappropriation of images is taken one step further. Twice removed from the original, they manifest as acerbic critiques on Pop Art's legacy. In the reckless reworkings of Mondrian, the austere and reductive aesthetic is violently undermined and order becomes chaos.

To some extent, Shrive's work mirrors Cubism, in that, instead of trying to bring many viewpoints into one, they explode into many different viewpoints from one - something he tackles head-on in his compelling version of Picasso's "Desmoiselles d'Avignon".

 
                                                                             
     scroll right >>>    

Yellow Geisha Diptych
2008, acrylic and varnish on brown paper, 98 x 73 and 110 x 74 cm

  

Torn Campbell's Soup Can
2008, acrylic and varnish on brown paper, 134 x 76 x 6 cm

  

Girl in Shades
2008, acrylic and varnish on brown paper, 152 x 90 x 10 cm

  

Desmoiselles d'Avignon
2008, acrylic and varnish on brown paper, 138 x 150 cm

 

Girl With Flower
2008, acrylic and varnish on brown paper, 125 x 85 x 7 cm

  

Syrinx
2008, acrylic and varnish on brown paper, 83 x 86 x 5 cm

  

Flame
2008, acrylic and varnish on brown paper, 170 x 83 x 10 cm

  

Elvis (after Warhol)
2007, acrylic on brown paper, 168 x 102 x 9 cm

  

Opalescent Green
2008, acrylic and varnish on brown paper, 48 x 32 x 6 cm

  

Small Red
2008, acrylic on brown paper., 59 x 40 x 4 cm

                  

Rupert Shrive