LONDON, ENGLAND.The Coningsby Gallery will present David Oates and Chris Legg, 17 - 24 September 2005 . Henry Painter is collaboration between 2 young London-based painters. The pair are drawn to similar painting processes and aspire to exhibit together and showcase the similarities between their works. What connects these artists is a parallel interest in contemporary urban environments and the effects of alternative perceptual realities generated by sophisticated image manipulation.
A common Urban/Technological feel is evoked in some cases by the use of mundane pop culture images, in others the use of urban colour schemes and in all cases, the actual technique itself. Henry Painter use design-based software, digital photography, projectors and image mapping combined with Painting to create strikingly contemporary work.
New conceptual models are born through digital imaging technology such as 'cut & paste', cloning and digital montage. By doing this, they aim to open up space both conceptually and visually, in order to produce a painterly interpretation of a given abstract space. Each artist takes the theme of Image and deconstructs it in a personal way.
David Oates – David’s recent work takes as its subject, houses: The identical, safe, indistinguishable homes of middle class clones. These depictions of middle class suburbia provide a commentary on the dreamlike / illusionist nature of middle England, in all its banal sterility. His work can be read as a celebration of his escape from the suffocating, mono-cultured suburbs. This work, like his earlier work, has the same graphical quality and slick use of painterly effects.
Chris Legg - Chris is concerned with the use of image as signifier and the themes of sampling, pattern and collage. His paintings reflect upon the structuring of the urban and the natural environment.
Chris combines an interest in commodity, mass culture and Simulation. Interested in consumerism and advertising’s implicit need to seduce culture on masse which tends towards visual traits that can be both visually beautiful and perverse.
His strategy involves the deployment of consumer logos. These low-brow, cheap, consumer logos evoke themes of alienation and the human condition, commenting on the banal and the beautiful. Interested in structures found also in the natural environment. In his more recent work he is interested in creating painterly environments and creating a personalized aesthetic style.
