Oliver Beck

Using ambivalent figuration and what I see as a kind of somnambulist formalism, my painting uses recurring motifs chosen deliberately for their hallucinogenic and abject connotations. Through the treatment of these motifs with lush swathes of peculiarly coloured paint, as well as the use of different levels of surface (things cut under, texture leaking on top, lines and ciphers of flight/stratification) they become mutated and ambiguous in terms of what they normally signify.

These works are an ongoing exercise in re-examining painting's iconographic/iconoclastic heritage and obliquely reference a wide ranging lineage: from Grünewald and El Greco, through to Van Gogh, Malevich and Baselitz as well as writers such as JG Ballard and Henri Michaux.

Following this tradition of what one might call a tradition of disfiguring and dissemblance, my intention is that they echo in someway contemporary life's implosion of meaning from a theatrical and semiological perspective.


(in progress)

Oliver Beck

Born London, England, 1968, lives and works in London


Education

Central Saint Martins, London, MA Fine Art, 2001-2003

Brighton University, Brighton, BA Visual and Performance Art, 1988-1991


Solo Exhibitions

Sartorial Contemporary Art, London, The Impossible Room, 27 November – 19 December 2009

Francis Hair Fashions Gallery, London, Fata Morgana, 3 May – 1st June 2008


Selected Group Exhibitions

Clifford Chance, London, Temples to the Domestic Part II, 17 September - October 2012

Appels Gallery, Amsterdam, Embassy Artists, May 19 – December 2012

Transition Gallery, London, Art Blitz, 25 November – 27 November 2010

Sartorial Contemporary Art, London, 9 Sheds, 26 June – 30 September 2010

Transition Gallery, London, Awopbopaloobop, 15 November – 21 December 2008

Phoenix Gallery, Brighton, Press and Release, 26 April – 7 June 2008

Transition Gallery, London, The Painting Room, 12 January - 10 February 2008

Francis Hair Fashions Gallery, London, Building Sites, 6 - 28 October 2007

Francis Hair Fashions Gallery, London, At War with the Mystics, 5 - 27 May 2007

Francis Hair Fashions Gallery, London, Town and Country Part 1, 25 November - 17 December 2006

Transition ...