Gabriel Hartley. Spoiled

Gabriel Hartley’s first exhibition with z2o Sara Zanin Gallery consists of paintings, drawings and sculptural reliefs made by the artist at the beginning of 2018 during his residency as Abbey Fellow in Painting at the British School at Rome.

In these works the idea of spoiling something, of purposefully pushing it to the point of ruin, is celebrated as a moment in which new interpretations are forced upon an object. Hartley describes a method of creation whereby paintings are found as much as composed through patient layering and excavating – he uses an angle grinder to carve away paint, scarring the surfaces (be it canvas, wood or paper) in the process. The resulting picture plane holds scattered information, where various images and thoughts come in and out of focus. Colors advance and recede, surfaces rise and fall.

The reliefs, made from offcuts of upholsterers furniture foam, are displayed so as to bring to mind spolia (spoils): the reused decorative sculpture found on buildings throughout Rome. There is a direct equivalence to this ancient practice of recycling and repurposing in the artist’s own process which finds echoes in Hartley’s description of the spolia as for him being somehow like thought bubbles – cartoony free-floating fragments of history.

In this show the vibrant and diverse imagery relates to particular moments noted in Rome.  The imagery is consciously a visitor’s view of the city, but seeks to treat the city as an important protagonist that shapes a consciousness and bears testimony to a particular mind set.  An image might bring to mind a specific monument, an architectural detail, or something more banal: a cloud, a tree, a Vespa, a bowl of pasta.

This exhibition is supported by the British School at Rome.

Opening Wednesday, June 6th, 2018 | 6.30 – 9.00 pm

Vai alla guida d'arte di Rome