Richard Woods
dal 26/4/2013 al 31/5/2013
Segnalato da
26/4/2013
Richard Woods
Alan Cristea Gallery, London
D.I.Y. His work traverses the boundaries between art, architecture and design in an on-going examination of the relationship between the functional and the ornamental.
The Alan Cristea Gallery is proud to present a solo exhibition of works by Richard Woods
from 29 April – 1 June 2013 at 34 Cork Street. The exhibition will feature a site-specific
installation in which Woods will clad the gallery space from floor to ceiling. This large-scale
installation will show alongside two new series of editions, his renowned Woodblock Inlays
series as well as a group of new sculptures, all combining to create a homogenous
environment.
The work of Richard Woods traverses the boundaries between art, architecture and
design in an on-going examination of the relationship between the functional and the
ornamental. The everyday surfaces that surround us provide the canvas onto which the
artist transposes elements from the vernacular of traditional urban design. His
architectural interventions toy with perception and reality, manipulating and transforming
the facades and interiors of existing structures through the application of synthetic fronts
or 'logos': galleries become mock-Tudor houses, City Hall security booths red
brick-castles, and cloistered Venetian courtyards crazy-paved suburban patios. His
simplified, stylised facades poke fun at our aesthetic values, both mocking and paying
homage to the cult of renovation and DIY. His distilled encasements impose new values
on the buildings they occupy, contrasting the urban with the rural, the old with the new,
and the congested with the minimal. Each installation challenges us to confront the way in
which we construct our surroundings, and probes the irrevocable artificiality of our local
environment.
Woods' site-specific installation at the Alan Cristea Gallery will comprise interior floor and
wall coverings in his trademark vibrantly-coloured and exaggerated wood-grain motif.
Deceptively simple in form, these bold images are produced using traditional
block-printing techniques and installed as parquetry (inlaying wood in geometric patterns).
Pre-occupied with the notion of reproduction, the techniques employed by Woods allude
to historical artisanal processes, the power of iconography and the dominance of
consumerist plasticity. As is the case with much of Woods' work, the method of
construction is appropriate to the surface he is mimicking, articulating the similarities
between the artist’s methodology and materials, and those used in everyday situations.
Woods’ print projects are the result of collaboration between the artist and Alan Cristea
Gallery and represent a natural progression from his installations and sculpture, all of
which start with a printed image. The first suite - Woodblock Inlays – takes their
composition from seemingly random scatterings of ‘offcuts’ from one of the artist’s floor
installations printed onto a single colour background taken from a sheet of plywood. The
most recent series, shown for the first time here, appear as more ordered compositions -
segments seemingly abstracted from a larger completed floor work. Both series are
densely inked and heavily printed to create a rich, physical surface on the paper.
Reminiscent of Suprematist aesthetics, the strength and severe geometry of their lines
also recalls the abstraction of High Modernism, drawing attention to its devolution into the
world of commercial decor. Echoing the postmodern irony of his installations, the work
plays with the intersection between the real and artificial.
About the Artist
Richard Woods was born in Chester in 1966. Selected solo exhibitions include Public
Commission, Antwerp (2010); Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2009); Royal
Academy of Art, London (2002), Public Art Fund, New York (2009), Grieder
Contemporary, Zurich (2008); Liverpool Biennial (2008); Milton Keynes Gallery (2008);
Deitch Projects, New York and Miami (2003); Cosmic Galerie, Paris (2006) and the
50th Venice Biennale (2003). His work is housed in numerous major collections including
the Saatchi Collection, Arts Council England, and the Fusan Museum, Istanbul. He
currently lives and works in London.
Image: Stone Clad Cottage (Sarvisalo), 2011. Zabludowicz Collection, Sarvisalo. Photo credit - David Bebber. Courtesy of Richard Woods Studio
For press information and images please contact:
Toby Kidd and Amy Sutcliffe at Pelham Communications
Tel: +44 20 8969 3959
Email: toby@pelhamcommunications.com and amys@pelhamcommunications.com
Private View: Saturday 27 April 11am-1pm
The Alan Cristea Gallery
34 Cork Street, London W1
10am-5.30pm Mon-Fri, 11am-2pm Sat
Free