ID
RALPH ANDERSON
ID
RALPH ANDERSON 17.11.21 - 22.01.22
Published on the occasion of the exhibition by JGM Gallery 24 Howie Street London SW11 4AY info@jgmgallery.com Catalogue Design: Alice Wilson ISBN 978-1-9196153-3-2 © 2021 JGM Gallery and the artists All rights reserved
PT (Sketch), 2021 Acrylic on Paper, 30 x 42cm
Those of you who have followed JGM Gallery since its inaugural exhibitions in 2017 will know that Ralph has been an integral part of the galleries programme and development from the start. A huge catalyst in my ambition to move from dealer to gallerist, (a vocation I started out in some 40 years ago in Melbourne) Ralph has been at the heart of many of the dialogues and relationships developed with the growing number of artists I now work with across the UK and beyond. For his third solo exhibition with JGM Gallery he has once again produced a showcase of his outstanding talent and dedication to the interrogation of painting. In seeking a departure from his aluminium cut-out paintings, we joked about how he might find a less labour intensive way to make his work, in contrast I think he may have upped his game! Echoing the removal of negative space in his aluminium works, Ralph is now carefully removing the surface layers of paint to etch out his marks on the painting itself, and to what great effect. Thank you for another great show Ralph.
Jennifer Guerrini-Maraldi
November 2021
Ralph Anderson: The ID Paintings Charley Peters
ID presents a new body of work from Ralph Anderson developed during, and in the months immediately after, the lockdown of winter 2021 in the UK. The paintings mark an evolution in Anderson’s work from abstract painted gestures cut from aluminium, to a practice that more openly explores the boundaries of abstraction, figuration, text and meaning. Throughout the exhibition we see familiar images of the British landscape re-presented with an interruptive language of symbols and letterforms etched rebelliously across their surfaces. The origins of the works are inherently linked to the unusual circumstances of our lives during the past two years and are in part a document of Anderson’s regular walks during lockdown and beyond, recording the streets and parks near his home in south London, weekend walks in Cambridgeshire and the home counties, and the landscapes of his childhood home in Scotland. During this period when the world slowed down and allowed us more time to experience our immediate environment, Anderson became fascinated with the traces that people have left on the landscape by carving initials, dates and graphic symbols into tree trunks and benches in parks, and the bricks of local buildings. This particular form of graffiti feels especially pertinent when reflecting on recent times where our understanding of selves through our previously routine relationships with other people and places were significantly changed during periods of isolation at home. By marking a surface we are expressing that we are present and have agency in the world, our traces record our subjectivity and leave a visual legacy. This is true of both the found graffiti that inspired Anderson’s ID paintings and the act of painting itself.
Graffiti and the related term graffito derive from the Italian word graffiato, meaning ‘scratched’. Although now synonymous with spray painted tags on walls in urban environments ‘graffiti’ is applied in the history of art to works made by scratching a design into a surface, and ‘graffito’ refers to a process of scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another underneath. During the months since lockdown Anderson has developed a technique of scratching through layers of carefully applied paint to suggest the marks left by others on municipal surfaces. Working from his photographs of letters carved into trees and buildings found on his walks, Anderson translated this graffiti into a series of drawings in his studio, which were eventually transposed back onto the surfaces of meticulously painted landscapes. Using a Dremel drill, Anderson has removed areas of the painting’s representational surface to mimic the forms of the found graffiti, revealing areas of underpainting applied in his signature high key palette. On first glance the paintings in ID are arresting in their departure from Anderson’s previous works. They exist within the boundaries of the rectangular canvas format where earlier paintings have broken spatial convention and presented as ‘objects’. However, a closer reading reveals a continued interrogation of themes important to his ongoing relationship with the processes and contexts of contemporary painting. In particular, Anderson explores the illusionary nature of the painted surface to both support the intuitive gesture and at the same time imply it through deliberate rendering. He makes precise decisions about materiality in his work. Using a heavy weave flax as a support ensures that the representational elements of painting have a physical presence beyond a mere pictorial description of a specific place. The landscapes in his paintings are an ‘image’ rather than a reality – the process of erasing the image’s painted surface and revealing the layers of information underneath reverses our understanding of foreground and background in the work and disrupts our perception of scale and spatial depth. We see multiple languages at once that do not share a common perspective or contextual framework. The graffitied text is a brutal intervention in our comprehension of the painting as a singular vision, these paintings are complex in their production and in how they make us question our understanding of what we see.
At the heart of the exhibition is the monumental painting ‘The Big I Am’, a 2.4m x 1.7m painting on canvas whose background image depicts the Albert Bridge, London. The title relates to the British expression ‘giving it the big I am’ which is used to describe someone behaving, often obnoxiously, as if they are very important. The use of language in Anderson’s work is significant in how we relate to his concerns as a painter. His source material of marks left by people in public spaces have been created by anonymous authors of which we know nothing about as individuals, but whose self has been asserted in an indelible way that locates them in an existence at the moment of creation and that lives on as a vestige in the future, beyond their natural lifespans. Leaving a trace in a shared space is an act of defiance against social rules, relocates ownership from the masses to the singular, and is a way of authenticating our own existence as a unique being. It gives us importance and allows us all to be ‘the big I am’ in a world where – especially recently – we have lost the freedom to live without restrictions that impact on how we relate to society and to each other. The painting is also a ‘big I am’ in itself, referring to heroic notions of painting from art history and challenging the cultural hierarchy between artforms accepted by the artistic canon, and those considered the work of the dilettante, funster or vandal. ID reflects a specific time in our recent lives. The works have grown from Anderson’s lockdown experience of walking, looking, and reflecting on his new reality. They also speak of wider issues that relate to the ownership of public space and the limits of the control we have over our physical environments. Paintings such as ‘August ‘87’ encourage us to see that public space extends beyond the tangible surfaces of physical location and into the infinite realms of the sky, and beyond. As we move forward from lockdown and start to reassert an autonomy of movement in our own lives, Anderson’s ID paintings are both an affirmation of his own identity as an artist, and also record our innate desire to be free to make our own marks in the world. Charley Peters is a painter based in London, whose work explores the legacy of abstraction in the post-digital image world. She completed a PhD in Fine Art Theory & Practice at De Montfort University.
B.E LOVE LCK, 2021 Acrylic on Flax 188 x 130cm
E Clarke, 2021 Acrylic on Flax 36 x 46cm
PT, 2021 Acrylic on Flax, 92 x 120cm
August ‘87, 2021 Acrylic on Flax 60 x 80cm
The Big I Am, 2021 Acrylic on Flax, 240 x 170cm
YW 4 AG, 2021 Acrylic on Flax 46 x 36cm
Walter, 2021 Acrylic on Flax 60 x 80cm
Horace, 2021 Acrylic on Flax 130 x 188cm
FIN, 2021 Acrylic on Flax 36 x 46cm
D+P, 2021 Acrylic on Paper 30 x 42cm
Kiren and Jimmy, 2021 Acrylic on Paper 30 x 42cm
G, 2021 Acrylic on Paper 30 x 42cm
Saoul + Marlene, 2021 Acrylic on Paper 30 x 42cm
Ralph Anderson B. 1977, Glasgow, UK
EDUCATION MA Fine Art, Wimbledon College of Art, UAL, 2011 – 2012 BA Fine Art, London Guildhall University, 1998 – 2001 SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2021 2019 2018 2017 2015 2014
ID, JGM Gallery, London This Is For You, JGM Gallery, London One Thousand Years, TM Lighting Gallery Artist in Residence, Eurostar Business Lounge, Gare du Nord, Paris Appropriate Matter, C&C Gallery, London Lucent Umbra Paintings, JGM Gallery, London The Future of Drip Pop, ArtKapsule @ Koleksiyon, London I’d Like To Get Off Please, ASC Projects, London Retrobate, ArtLacuna, London
PUBLICATIONS Ralph Anderson: This Is For You, JGM Gallery catalogue, 2019 Inside the Studio of Ralph Anderson, Creative Boom online, May 2019 This is for you: Ralph Anderson, Country & Town House online, May 2019 Discovering the London Art Fair’s 2019 Edition, Style Wanderings, Jan 2019 Ralph Anderson: Lucent Umbra Paintings, JGM Gallery catalogue, 2017 Bonfire of the Vanities, Wall Street International, Dec 2015 Best of Both, The Clerkenwell Post, May 2015 Interpretating the Abstract, Patterns That Connect, 2014 At Lion and Lamb Gallery, Patterns That Connect, 2014 Paint Like You Mean It, Interview Room 11, 2014 COLLECTIONS Bolivar-David Collection Cafe Murano Guerrini Maraldi Collection The Hospital Club Howden Collection Landmark Plc
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2008 2007 2006
MERRY-GO-ROUND, JGM Gallery, London Reflection, JGM Gallery, London The Collectors Room, JGM Gallery, London London Art Fair, JGM Gallery Stand, Business Design Centre, London Modern Finance, Thames Side Gallery, London Re Assemble, Collyer Bristow, London London Art Fair, JGM Gallery Stand, Business Design Centre, London Harder Edge, Saatchi Gallery, London Summer Show, JGM Gallery, London Do Re Mi Fa So La Te, Perimeter Space, Griffin Gallery, London Earth, Wind and Fire, Griffin Gallery, London Approximated Sunlight, Tannery Arts, London Interstices, Art Elsewhere, Stour Space, London 30° Celsius, ASC Gallery, London The Fun Stops There, Art and Craft, London Bonfire of the Vanities, Display Gallery, London Doppleganger, No Format Gallery, London Contemporary British Abstraction, SE9 Container Gallery, London Invited Artist, SEEArt Fair, Tunbridge Wells 50/50/50, Syson, Nottingham Pareidolia, Pluspace, Coventry Expanded Painting: Mocka-Modern, Oval Space, London Post Canvas Assembly, The Miller, London A5, Lubomirov-Easton @ Art Athina, Athens Drawing the Line, Art Kapsule, Koleksiyon, London Out of the Blue, Morley Gallery, London Wunderkammer, Bow Arts Trust, London Utterance, Centre for Drawing, London Ralph Anderson and Alice Wilson, Boat of Garten, Scotland Workforce, John Jones Art Centre, London The Fastest With The Mostest, Carter & Gallagher, London Viewing Club VI, Hats Plus, London Viewing Club V, Secession Wichtelgasse, Vienna Carter Presents, Scope Art Fair, London Rag and Bone, Three Colts Gallery, London Viewing Club IV, Henkel Stuben, Berlin
ID RALPH ANDERSON 17.11.21 - 22.01.22