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11/1/2011

Tom Ellis

Motinternational, London

“Then, being crazy, which is what he is, with the kind of craziness that most of the time takes one thing for another, and thinks white is black and black is white, like the time he said that the windmills were giants, and friars’ mules dromedaries, and the flocks of sheep enemy armies, and many other things of that nature, it won’t be very hard to make him believe that a peasant girl, the first one I run into here, is the lady Dulcinea; and if he doesn’t believe it, I’ll swear it’s true; and if he swears it isn’t, I’ll swear again that it is; and if he insists, I’ll insist more; and so I’ll always have the last word, no matter what.”
(Sancho Panza in Don Quixote Part II, Miguel De Cervantes)

Like Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Tom Ellis can find all the adventures he needs in picture books, but rather than chivalry, he finds his influence in the history of painting. Ellis studies old catalogues such as the Wallace Collection Catalogue of Pictures volume IV Dutch and Flemish and like Quixote, his study of the old masters helps him imagine he sees something quite different to what is before his eyes. Instead of a Virgin and child Ellis sees a bearded child complete with enormous member, being lovingly fondled by the virgin. A sleeping bore finds his hand buried deep in his trousers and a dutch woman becomes chinese. Figures from other paintings find themselves in new scenarios acting out their base needs in timeless landscapes painted in the flourish of a time past or future to be. Ellis paints many versions of the same set pieces, sometimes in black and white, next in colour or monochrome. He paints and copies paintings from books, then defaces them with marker pen, drawing beards, glasses and cigarettes like some adolescent Caravaggio. He happily steals and appropriates then forges his own hand, making small studies into epic scaled copies. Since Tom Ellis realised the inherent nihilistic nature of painting he has plunged in head first and hasn’t come up for breath. Here he has found the tools with which to play out his project and the results of his foray are truly sublime, a truth, like Sancho Panza, that he will swear and swear again, always having the last word.

MOT INTERNATIONAL is pleased to present Tom Ellis’ second solo exhibition at the gallery. We are delighted to be exhibiting a series of new paintings and a brand new series of altered catalogue pages in which Ellis has used an eraser and pencil to redraw and alter old catalogue images. Both the new paintings and over-drawings, see Ellis able to marry humour and style in an effortless and yet investigative, celebration of painting.

Tom Ellis was born in London in 1973 where he continues to live and work. Recent solo exhibitions include Kunsthalle Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland, 2010; We Came Here To Get Laid, Not to Critique Dutch Culture, Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam, 2009; Get Me a Show In China, Space, London, 2009; Wszystko/Everything, Czarna Gallery, Warsaw, 2008. Tom Ellis is currently showing at the Saatchi Gallery as part of Newspeak: British Art Now.

Opening preview Wednesday 12 January 6-8pm

Mot International
8 Andrews Road (Unit 54/5th floor Regents Studio) - London
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 11 - 6 and by appointment
Admission free

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