Monday 1 August 2011

'SONS OF PIONEERS' - FURINI CONTEMPORARY - ROME, ITLAY - 2011 - Solo Exhibition




Tim Ellis - Sons of Pioneers



Tim Ellis, United in Different Guises - Midday on the Mount, 2011

Wondering about the unexpressed possibilities of the artefact, altering the purpose to which it was originally put with the intention of reassessing its value and function, bringing out the process that leads a found object to take on a different cultural value.
Tim Ellis’s practice is based on the juxtaposition of culturally different materials and objects and probes both their formal value and their original purpose, obliging the viewer to raise questions about notions of functionality, authorship and display. Through mental relations and the imperceptible alteration of forms, the young English artist declares a sort of relative commitment to the concept of artefact and that of artifice, to the principle of creativity and seriality.

The title of the exhibition refers to the idea of being threatened by the weight of history, while it is laid out as if it were a proposal for the beginning of a new ideology. Both sculpture and painting - models, trophies and testimonies to something bigger - focus their tension on that juncture in perennial balance between the fact and the historical object, between its manufacture and its distribution, suggesting reflections on the role of artifice within the process of production of meaning.

On this occasion the paintings use exactly the same emblem, a sort of iconic monument or totemic construction whose colour varies with the season and the time of day, and in this way opposes the inevitable ravages of time. These works continue the series of progressively numbered paintings grouped under the title United in Different Guises. Proposing as they do a dual function, with a role of representation as well as communication, at the root of their imagery lies an intentional fusion of signs and design, a visual strategy that is then recomposed and codified under a more generically symbolic appearance. Through technical devices such as the bending of the support, the scratching and the progressive and gradual aging of the surface and the colour, the painting itself is transformed into a succession of functional propositions. What is offered to the gaze is in the end an object that brings into question the notions of symbolism and authenticity, allowing the final image to go beyond the confines of painting itself.

Bio: Tim Ellis (Chester, 1981, lives and works in London) studied at Liverpool John Moores 2000-2003 and the Royal Academy Schools 2006-2009. His Solo and Group shows include ‘The Tourist’ 2011 (Solo) Spacex, Exeter, England, ‘A Foundation for Exchange’ Primopiano Lugano Switzerland 2010 (Solo). ‘The John Moores Painting Prize 26’ The Walker Art Gallery Liverpool 2010, ‘Newspeak - British Art Now Part I.’ Saatchi Gallery London 2010. ‘Tag 3 to 36 New London Painting’ Brown Gallery London 2010. ‘New Sensations’ The A foundation London 2009. ‘Alexandre Pollazzon Presents’ Alexandre Pollazzon London 2008, ‘Falling from an Apple Tree’ Wilde Gallery Berlin 2008. ‘Premiums’ The Royal Academy London 2008. ‘The Last Gang in Town’ Arena Gallery Liverpool 2006. Forthcoming exhibitions include ‘Secret Societies’ Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany.


Tim Ellis | Sons of Pioneers
May 4 – July 16, 2011
Opening: May 4, 6:30pm
Furini Arte Contemporanea, Via Giulia 8, Roma
Open days: Wensday-Friday 1-7 pm, Saturday 3-7 pm
Info: +39 06 68307443, info@furiniartecontemporanea.it
Website: http://www.furiniartecontemporanea.it/
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