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GAVIN TREMLETT
Amusements
10
December 2010 to 29 January 2011
“Situated between an embrace of vulgarity in
contemporary culture, and a yearning for a lost mode of
figuration in painting, my work establishes a place of
intersection between the sublime possibilities of painting,
and the closed, crude nature of
pornography.”
CHARLIE SMITH london is delighted to
present Berlin based artist Gavin Tremlett
with his first one person show in London.
Tremlett’s portraits and full figure nudes provide a
point of entry into an investigation of the human self.
Playfully encouraging the gaze Tremlett’s classically rendered
adolescent subjects invite us to engage voyeuristically whilst
simultaneously turning the gaze back upon itself, as if to
both absorb and reflect; to watch and be watched; to tempt and
to reject. Displaying an emphatic sexuality, Tremlett’s
subjects are at once enticing, inquiring and accusatory.
Innocent and guilty, they are both victims and
perpetrators.
Tremlett’s unparalleled technical ability combined with
the seductive come hither pose of his subjects leads us into a
confrontation with the uncanny. Beauty vies with deformity as
his classically rendered, often mask-like visages both obscure
as well as disclose. This rendering of face as mask is often
coupled with abstract, painterly marks that serve to obfuscate
the subject, thus interfering with the totality of an ideal
self. There is a denial of the whole but also a doubling in
process here, both physically and symbolically. The idea of
the double, which can be read into portraits, reflections,
shadows, totems or even the continuation of a blood line, as
the psychoanalyst Otto Rank would have it, is a narcissistic
extension of the self and a guarantee of
immortality.
Tremlett’s paintings then are beautiful and unsettling
manifestations of numerous combined and fragmented sources. At
once we are attending art history, pornography, popular
culture, nostalgic ideals, and the artist’s and our own inner
drives and memories, both apparent and repressed.
Gavin Tremlett, born:
1977.
Education: 2001 – 2004: MA in Painting, Royal Academy
Schools, London; 1996 – 1999: BA (Hons) in Fine Art (First
Class), Loughborough University School of Art &
Design
Selected Exhibitions: 2010: Amusements (Solo), CHARLIE
SMITH london, London; The Future Can Wait (curated by Zavier
Ellis & Simon Rumley), Shoreditch Town Hall, London; New
British Painting (curated by Zavier Ellis & Pilvi
Kalhama), Gallery Kalhama & Piippo, Helsinki; Papyrophilia
(curated by Zavier Ellis), CHARLIE SMITH london, London; 2008:
Be Stiff (Solo), Wohnmaschine, Berlin; Prague Triennial,
National Gallery of Contemporary Art, Prague; 2007: Malkunst
2, Contemporary Painting in Berlin, Fondazione Mudima, Milano;
The Dream of Putrefaction, The Metropole Galleries, Folkstone;
2006: The Hobby (Solo), Wohnmaschine, Berlin; Icons, Chung
King Project, Los Angeles; 2005: Introspective Men, Madder
139, London; Schmidt, Tremlett, Tzamouranis, Wohnmaschine,
Berlin; 2005: Faux Realism Part 2, The Rockwell Project,
London; Faux Realism Part 1, The Royal Academy Schools
Gallery, Hornsey; 2004: The Arrival s, The Pump House Gallery,
London
Awards & Residencies: 2004: The Gordon Luton Award
for Fine Art Painter-Stainers
Collections: Thomas Rusche, Münster, private
collections throughout Europe
Image:
Gavin Tremlett
Portrait Study 6
Oil
& graphite on paper
54x45cm
2010
Courtesy
of CHARLIE SMITH london
CHARLIE SMITH london
2nd
Floor
336 Old
Street
London,
EC1V 9DR
T +44
020 7739 4055
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