LONDON.- Richard Grayson’s work is energised by the kind of cultural collisions that make contemporary life exciting.

Inspired by the correlation of apparently disparate cultural artifacts and phenomena, Grayson investigates the importance of language and narrative in how we comprehend the world. Through the use of playful or decorative forms Grayson is able to engage his audience with complex and difficult ideas. We are encouraged to participate in a critical and perhaps subversive view of humanity that encompasses astrology, religion, politics, the global economy and extra-terrestrial life.

As a retrospective of his work from the past five years, the exhibition at De La Warr Pavilion brings together prints, drawings and films by Grayson for the first time.

Messiah
Messiah is a dual projection video work in which an Australian country and western band perform new musical settings for the libretto of Handel’s 1742 oratorio The Messiah. The band use the language of country rock in the new tunes that only occasionally reference the original melodies – The Hallelujah Chorus - for example. Visitors are asked to sit on bales of hay to consider this work.

Messiah is scheduled for presentation at the 2010 Sydney Biennale and commissioned by Matt’s Gallery, London

The Golden Space City of God
This large-scale video installation features a new choral work written by Leo Chadburn, performed by a 26-piece choir and is presented in the gallery that has been re-figured to resemble a church or community hall. Taking text from a website of The Family, a movement grown from the 1960s American Christian cult Children of God, the work tells of the extraordinary events leading up to the end of the world, drawn upon the Book of Revelation and the images and language of science-fiction.

The Golden Space City of God is a co-commission by Matt’s Gallery, London and ArtPace

San Antonio
Ways the World Ends is a series of prints that use texts found on the internet that prophesize the end of the world and presents them in decorative, spiralling forms and acid colours. Large Colliders combines ariel photographs of Hadron Collider sites with texts extracted from blogs expressing concern at the implications of this form of scientific research. Intelligence is an ongoing series of hand drawn computer generated commentaries and star-charts of people associated with the current Middle East situation. Tombs of Christ are five pencil drawings of sites, taken from the internet, all of which are believed to be the burial place of Jesus Christ.

Richard Grayson is represented by Matt ' s Gallery, London ; and Yuill/Crowley Gallery, Sydney.

Richard Grayson
Richard Grayson Selected solo exhibitions 2009 The Golden Space City of God Matt ' s Gallery, London 2006 Suspicious Fires Yuill/Crowley Gallery, Sydney 2005 Intelligence Matt ' s Gallery, London 2004 Messiah Matt ' s Gallery, London and Yuill/Crowley Gallery, Sydney; The Messiah Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin 2002 A Diary, a History, a Walk up the Hill Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide; Ways the World Ends Yuill/Crowley Gallery, Sydney 2000 Negative Space (things I don’t understand) Yuill/Crowley Gallery, Sydney 1999 1000 accidents/Ahistoryofreading Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; Ahistoryofreading Artspace, Sydney 1998 A Famous Struggle/VariousThings Explained Contemporary Art Centre, Adelaide Selected Group Exhibitions 2009 : International Artist in Residence: New Works 09.01. curated by Trevor Smith at Artpace, San Antonio, Texas 2008 Obscurum Obscurantis Tallin Arthoone, Estonia 2007 A Number of Worlds Resembling Our Own Smart Project Space, Amsterdam; Navigations Per Forma Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin 2006 Happy Believers 7th Werkleitz Biennial, Halle Germany 2005 Art Unlimited Basel; Project 3 CACSA Adelaide; Electric Renaissance Culture-Centre Halle; Gott sehen - Das Überirdische als Thema derZeitgenössischen Kunst Kunstmuseum des Kantons Thurgau, Kartause Ittingen, Switzerland 2004 Cartographies Performance Space, Sydney; Planet B Magazin 4 Vorarlberger Kunstverein and Bregenzer Kunstverein, Bregenz Selected exhibitions as curator 2007 : Scary Movie Contemporary Art Centre, Adelaide 2006 This Will Not Happen Without You (Basement to Locus 1979 - 2007) (Arts Council touring exhibition) John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle and Belfast University; A Secret Service (Hayward Gallery touring exhibition) Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill and The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester 2002 Sydney Biennale (The World May Be) Fantastic Sydney, Australia