Simon Patterson
&
Julian Rowe
17 May to 10 June 2022
Opening Party: Tuesday 17 May 6 - 8pm
School Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Simon Patterson & Julian Rowe. This is the second exhibition in a series of experimental pairings at School for 2022.
Simon Patterson is one of the most consistently inventive of the generation of London-based artists who came to international prominence in the 1990’s. A complex manipulation of systems of classification, documentation, description and understanding, his work urges us to reconsider how and why we think we know what we know.
Patterson was born in Leatherhead, Surrey in 1967. He studied at Hertfordshire College of Art & Design, 1985–6, then graduated with honours from Goldsmiths’ College, 1986–9. Group exhibitions included London University Institute of Education, 1987; 1789–1989 – Ideas and Images of Revolution, Kettle’s Yard Gallery, Cambridge, 1989; and Milch Ltd, 1990. Had a solo exhibition at Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, 1989, Chisenhale Gallery, 1994, and Lisson Gallery, 1996. There was an installation at VTO in 2001 and in 2005 Ikon Gallery in Birmingham held a survey exhibition. Patterson employed many means, including painting, sculpture, photography, performance and installation as well as computer and digital media.
He was nominated for The Turner Prize in 1996
Julian Rowe’s work has developed from a sculptural exploration of repetition and randomness, into a multidisciplinary engagement with weighty, and even epic, narrative themes drawn from history and literature. Such ambition is unsustainable without a pinch of irony, and his work is underpinned with hints of sardonic humour. The apparently documentary nature of much of his work also invites scepticism, as underlying it is a questioning of the nature of narrative itself. We understand the world through stories, but the stories we tell do not necessarily map onto the world. Julian is an inventor of fictions and it was not surprising to find him some time ago in a makeshift beach laboratory at Folkestone persuading passers-by that an invisible object was hovering above their town.
Julian gained a BA (1st Class Hons) in Philosophy and Art History with the Open University (1984), and MA in Fine Art with Distinction from the University for the Creative Arts, Canterbury (2010). He has shown widely and undertaken a number of public commissions. Recent shows include: Le Fantôme de la Peinture, Rezdechaussée, Bordeaux / Gestures of Resistance, Romantso, Athens/ It’s Too Soon to Say, Surface Gallery, Nottingham / Cherry Time, Elysium Gallery, Swansea / Cathedrals, Musée des Beaux Arts, Rouen / I'd Like to See the Governor Now Please ... or Whoever is in Charge, Parfitt Gallery, Croydon. Prizes: Painted Surface Open, Nottingham / Quay Arts Open, Newport IoW / Discerning Eye, London. Publications include: a contribution to Earthworks, by Andrew Kötting, Badbloodandsybil) / The Folkestone non-linear para-spectrometry field study, UCA / Capriccio, Chrome Green.
All the experimental 2 person exhibitions will be archived in a publication with a unique piece of writing for each show.