In Bloom
Tim Ellis
In Bloom
Tim Ellis
29th April - 29th May 2021
JGM GALLERY Published on the occasion of the exhibition by JGM Gallery 24 Howie Street London SW11 4AY info@jgmgallery.com Catalogue Design: Alice Wilson ISBN 978-1-9160585-8-3 © 2021 JGM Gallery and the artists All rights reserved
Opposite: Systems and Parallels CDXIX (detail), 2020. Ink on handmade paper, 42 x 30cm
I met Tim over two years ago when I was recommended by a trusted friend to arrange a visit to his Dalston studio. As with our usual days out visiting studios, google maps are definitely open and I find myself in parts of London I’ve never been before. After a couple of dead ends, a seriously potholed driveway and a scramble up a fire escape, Tim welcomed me to his fascinating studio space. With so much to look at and with the warm welcome that greeted me, it took a little while to begin to decipher all the intricacies of the space and the myriad of shelves packed with ideas, maquettes and objects that Tim had carefully collected and which invariably act as his resource. Two studio visits later and with Tim’s inclusion in the annual exhibition programme at JGM Gallery, firstly through Karen David’s curation The Collectors Room and more recently Merry-Go-Round. It is with great excitement and enormous pleasure that I welcome Tim for his first solo exhibition at JGM Gallery, In Bloom. The development of Tim’s practice, which he describes beautifully in the accompanying text, has been growing and exploring his fascination with the world that surrounds him, as well as his interest in aesthetic art movements and intricate patterns. The sculptures that Tim is presenting are entirely conceived for presentation at JGM Gallery along with the installation of large-scale drawings made to fill our two dominant window spaces that are much enjoyed by the local community and visitors to JGM Gallery. I look forward to welcoming you to this thoughtful and exciting exhibition, to launch the JGM Gallery exhibition programme post the prohibitive pandemic lockdowns.
Jennifer Guerrini Maraldi April 2021
Opposite: Dappling, 2020. Acrylic and varnish on cotton, 75 x 45cm
A Letter to Myself - a way of seeing The task of putting into words something that is born out of a melting pot of research and resources in the studio is never easy. I’ve never really felt that words can ever properly convey what happens in the studio and the resulting pieces made. All the layers of making, feelings, thoughts and ideas bundled up together in an art object. How can that object be deciphered in any other way than by using your eyes and your own aesthetic judgements and knowledge? This letter to myself charts my own understanding of how I see the work created in this exhibition.
Notes from a Sketch book – Hima Af Klint
For me Art has always been another language, something cryptic, rich, multilayered and absorbing. A visual tool to communicate something else, something often hard to define, that takes you on a journey of discovery. The Japanese word ‘Komorebi’ which translates as ‘the scattered light that filters through when sunlight shines through trees’ has always struck me and I feel it captures what I am trying to do in the studio. My work only exists because other things exist in the world, like the scattered light only existing because of the trees and the sun. I respond to the world around me, assimilating and stitching together experiences and research to make something new. My works are always abstract and talk around ideas, appropriating patterns and techniques and reforming them in new compositions. What happens in the studio is a playful exploration, sprinkled with a mix of intuitive decisions, with well thought out systems and acknowledging what connections are made. Many pieces are a surprise, a reaction to research, materials and forms, a blending of styles that interest me and ultimately satisfy my own curiosity and fascination with the environment around me.
Unknown Map
Emma Kunst
There has been a shift in focus within my art practice, a conscious decision to reassess how your eye moves across a work, through an investigation of pattern, colour and surface. Over the last 2 years I’ve collected a wealth of handmade papers, many infused with plant matter, coloured fibers and fragments specific to different places. The surfaces range from smooth, almost waxy finishes, to rough and course fibrous papers that suck and absorb pigment. The opportunity arose over the lockdown period to reassess what could be made and developed using these handmade papers as a starting point. Drawing has become an integral part of my practice and I have spent many trips away observing and charting what I see by mapping those environments on paper. More recently due to Covid-19 I have spent many hours looking out of windows, mapping spaces abstractly whilst observing my garden, its exotic collection of plant species, and the panoramic view I have of the wide-open parks and urban environment of south east London. Translating these ideas as drawings on handmade paper and paintings on cotton came through developing my own ideas around abstracted maps and journeys, mapping spaces through symbols, shapes and patterns, layering information and treating each work as a response to the surface, blending different spaces together on one format. I became very interested in Hilma Af Klint’s work, particularly her drawings associated with her spiritual explication of the plant world and her abstract response which drew on systems and symbols outside of a traditional art language. This formed the basis for understanding the environment around me and how I could translate these ideas and interests into complex drawings and paintings.
The Alhambra
Suzhou window frame – China
I have always been interested in maps, how spaces are charted, the rules created and symbols used to denote or define information. The earliest cartographers looked at the sky rather than the earth for their starting points and many early maps are rich with indiscernible abstract codes and symbols. My drawings were a way of doing this, mapping or charting territories on paper and creating abstract worlds of pattern and geometry that take your eye on a journey. Maps have always held a fascination to me because they allow you to travel without leaving a space, you can conjure your own stories or imagine the landscape, seeing a space or place in another way. These new ways of seeing and interpreting environments around me prompted me to look back and revisit previous trips, particularly the Palaces of the Alhambra and the Real Alcazar. Both Palaces fuse complex geometric and abstract patterns with nature as a way of communicating spiritually, alluding to a higher being or world. There was a wealth of information that I felt could be tapped into both formally and metaphorically to understand how I might use pattern and create my own systems. It was at this time I also became fascinated by Emma Kunst’s ‘Energy Field Drawings’, expansive system based works that simultaneously contain micro and macro perspectives of nature, chiming with current discourses on ecology, as well as a desire to forge meaningful connections with our environment.
The sculptural works and reliefs are essentially three-dimensional maps and were a development of the drawings and paintings. A chance discovery of Chinese Suzhou window frames prompted me to reconsider how I might construct each piece in unconventional and interesting ways. Suzhou frames are an integral part of the landscape, fusing outside and inside space together with beautiful abstract designs that reference narrative, symbolism and nature. Each frame is designed to work in harmony with the natural landscape and are positioned to layer up information, by looking through one frame into another. As a consequence, my own pattern designs, drawings on handmade paper and found patterns were cut and grafted onto cast architectural structures. Each piece having its own clearly defined terroir with gullies, valleys and pitfalls, filled with contradictory information and changing patterns depending on different viewing point.
Striped Cathedral, Joyce Kozloff, 1977
I have often been asked why pieces look a certain way and at times compositionally look at odds. I am interested in creating works that have an uncomfortable or challenging composition that makes you appreciate an area of harmony and vice versa, a kind of compositional dialogue, where to understand quiet you have to understand loud. I became more and more aware of this after seeing the ‘Pattern and Decoration’ movements work and considering their aesthetic judgments, all rich with awkward decisions, textures, patterns and harmonious interplays. There is a wealth of information to be tapped into and their legacy is more aligned with interior design than art. That for me makes it ever more interesting as another way of seeing that isn’t conventional and asks you to ask further questions about what you are looking at.
Tim Ellis, April 2021
Ducking and Diving, 2020
Handmade paper, ink, block prints, wood, metal fixings and plaster, 28 x 24 x 7cm
Rambling Backslider, 2020
Handmade paper, ink, block prints, wood, metal fixings and plaster, 28 x 22 x 8cm
From Left to Right:
Systems and Parallels CDXLXXXXVII Systems and Parallels CDXXIII Systems and Parallels CDXXV all Ink on handmade paper, 42 x 30cm
From Left to Right:
Systems and Parallels CDXXII Systems and Parallels CDXLXIII Systems and Parallels CDXLXXIV all Ink on handmade paper, 42 x 30cm
Antisolar Points, 2020
Handmade paper, ink, block prints, wood, metal fixings and plaster, 28 x 31 x 13cm
Music of a Sphere, 2020
Acrylic and varnish on cotton 75 x 45cm
The Sky is Broken, 2021
Handmade paper, ink, block prints, wood, enamel,metal fixings and plaster 38 x 30 x 15cm
In Rainbows, 2020
Acrylic and varnish on cotton 75 x 45cm
Reverso, 2020
Handmade paper, ink, block prints, wood, metal fixings and plaster, 30 x 28 x 8cm
Techno Chip, 2020
Acrylic and varnish on cotton 75 x 45cm
Starburst, 2020
Acrylic and varnish on cotton 75 x 45cm
Cracks in the Pavement, 2021
Handmade paper, ink, block prints, wood, enamel,metal fixings and plaster 46 x 34 x 14cm
Crepuscular Rays, 2020
Handmade paper, ink, block prints, wood, metal fixings and plaster, 33 x 22 x 6.5cm
Everlasting Everglades, 2020
Handmade paper, ink, block prints, wood, metal fixings and plaster, 28 x 25 x 15m
From Left to Right:
Systems and Parallels CDXV Systems and Parallels CDXXIV Systems and Parallels CDXIII
all Ink on handmade paper, 42 x 30cm
Intersteller Burst, 2020
Handmade paper, ink, block prints, wood, metal fixings and plaster, 34 x 28 x 8cm
Crosstown Traffic, 2020
Acrylic and varnish on cotton 75 x 45cm
From Left to Right:
Systems and Parallels CDXX Systems and Parallels CDXXI Systems and Parallels CDXIX
all Ink on handmade paper, 42 x 30cm
Potsu Potsu, 2020
Acrylic & varnish on cotton 75 x 45cm
Red Point, 2020
Acrylic & varnish on cotton 75 x 45cm
Tim Ellis MRBS B. 1981 CHESTER, UK
EDUCATION 2006-09 2000-03
Post Graduate Diploma Fine Art, The Royal Academy Schools, London, UK BA (Hons) Fine Art, John Moores University, Liverpool, UK
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2021 2019 2018 2016 2014 2013 2011 2010
In Bloom, JGM Gallery, London, UK (upcoming) Tomorrow’s Harvest, FOLD Gallery, London, UK Solo Presentation, Art Rotterdam, Van Nelle Fabriek, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Cypher, PAPER Gallery, Manchester, UK * C.O.D.A, FOLD Gallery, London, UK Finding Comfort in an Unknown Future, FOLD Gallery, London, UK We Belong Together, IAG, Hong Kong * Sons of Pioneers, Furini Contemporary, Rome, Italy The Tourist, SpaceX, Exeter, UK A Foundation For Exchange, Primopiano, Lugano, Switzerland
AWARDS & RESIDENCIES 2021 Finalist First Plinth Award 2014 100 Painters of Tomorrow, Thames & Hudson Exhibition Shortlist - MAC International, The Metropolitan Arts Centre, Belfast, Northern Ireland 2013 Finalist NSP Sculpture Prize, Broomhill, Devon, England * 2011 Glenfiddich Residency, Dufftown, Scotland * 2010 Exhibition Shortlist - John Moores Painting Prize 26, The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool 2009 The Gordon Luton Award Patricia Turner Award for Sculpture 2008 Peter Rippon Travel Award
COLLECTIONS The Saatchi Collection, The Glenfiddich Collection, Swiss Life and various public and private collections in
Europe, Asia and USA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2021 Relic, APT Gallery, London Afterimage, curated by Kate Street and Stephen Cooper, Blyth Gallery, Imperial College, London. 2020 Dance First/Think Later, General Practice, Lincoln. The Collectors Room, curated by Karen David, JGM Gallery, London. 2019 Personal Structures, PAPER Pavilion, ECC, Palazzo Mora, Venice Biennale, Italy. Habitat, JGM Gallery, London. Possible Architectures, SLG, University of Greenwich, London. * Open Construction, The National Trust, Eastbury Manor, Essex. 2018 Harder Edge, curated by Dominic Beattie, The Saatchi Gallery, London. Paper-Cuts, Kristian Day, The Saatchi Gallery, London. A History of Drawing, curated by Kelly Chorpening, Camberwell Project Space, University of the Arts, London. * 2017 Beneath The Colour, In conjunction with Saatchi Gallery & Hyatt Regency, London. 100 x Handpicked Saatchi Gallery Christies London & New York. 2016 Now It is Permitted: 24 Wayside Pulpits, curated by Bridget Smith, Swedenborg Society, London. Wish You Were Here, Estuary 2016, Metal, Southend Pier, Essex. Phase 1 (Reseau Peinture), Ruskin Gallery, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. Flatland, FOLD Gallery, London. 2015 Local Objects, curated by Rita Salvaggio, Ikeyazhang, Milan, Italy. The Whitechapel Open, curated by Daniel Hermann & Poppy Bowers, The Whitechapel Gallery, London. * Illegitimate Objects, The Mathematical Institute, Oxford University, UK. * Long Ting (No Long Ting), Ron Mandos Gallery, Amsterdam, Holland. 2014 The MAC International, The Metropolitan Arts Centre, Belfast, Northern Ireland. 100 Painters of Tomorrow, Thames & Hudson, One Art Space, Tribeca, New York. * Open 17, International exhibition of sculptures and installations, Venice Lido & San Servolo Island, Venice, Italy.* Icastica, Fraternita Laici, Museo di Ivan Bruschi & Galleria Comunale D’Arte Contemporanea, Municipality of Arezzo, Italy. * Symbolic Logic, IAG, Hong Kong.* 2013 Image/Object, Furini Contemporary, Rome, Italy. Misinformation Centre, Hack The Barbican, The Barbican, London. 2011 The Others, Turin, Italy. Secret Societies, To Know, To Dare, To Will, To Keep Silence, The Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany and CAPC Musee d’Art Contemporain, Bordeaux, France. ** 2010 John Moores Painting Prize 26, The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. * Newspeak: British Art Now, Part 1, The Saatchi Gallery, London. * 2009 The Royal Academy Schools Show, The Royal Academy of Art, London. * New Sensations, The A Foundation, London. (* Exhibition Publication) Above: Komorebi Days, 2020 Handmade paper, ink, block prints, wood, metal fixings and plaster, 29.5 x 24 x 8cm
In Bloom
Tim Ellis
29th April - 29th May 2021
JGM GALLERY