Hedley Roberts in Conversation with Alexis Harding in association with UEL
APRIL 27th 2017
3.00pm
NEW ART PROJECTS are delighted to host an afternoon with HEDLEY ROBERTS and ALEXIS HARDING in conversation and discussion about their work.
Alexis Harding is an extremely influential, critically acclaimed abstract contemporary painter. Put simply he uses the reaction of gloss paint poured over oil paint to create paintings. He plays with the language of abstract art and distorts and changes it by manipulating the simple ingredients of painting.
Hedley Roberts’ paintings start figuratively with recognisable features and representational composition, but as they progress, elements are obliterated, layered over, removed or simplified. Works can be realised in a single sitting, across weeks or even returned to over years. The finished works become not only a portrait of the sitter but also function as “other” portraits of the time and landscape in which they were made.
Alexis Harding was born in London in 1973. He studied at Goldsmiths’ College 1992-95. His first group shows were in 1995 and his first solo show was at Project Room, Gallery S65, Aalst, Belgium 1997. He has had solo shows at Andrew Mummery Gallery London in 1998, 2000 and 2003, Rubicon Gallery Dublin and Galerie Katarina Krohn Köln in 2002 and Marella Arte Contemporanea Milan in 2004. 2006 Rubicon Gallery, Dublin Allerart, Bludenz, Austria. 2007‘Depthplunge’, Mummery + Schnelle, London. 2009‘Bi-product Depositories’, Mummery+Schnelle and‘Broken Lines’, Marabini Gallery, Milan. Recent group shows include. 2006 Linda Aloysius, Alexis Harding, Warren Neidech, Andrew Mummery Gallery. 2007 Painting in the Noughties, Letterkenny Arts Centre, Ireland. Art Futures, Bloomberg Space. Driven, Fieldgate Gallery, London. Strange geography, Kingsgate Gallery, London. ‘Paint’, Two Rooms, New Zealand. 2008 Group show, Georgia Scherman Projects, Toronto. ‘Same as it ever was’, painting at Chelsea 1990-2007. 2009 Getting Nowhere, Galleria Gentili, Prato, Italy. The Path of most resistance, OCAD, Toronto. Supersurface FX: Hollenbach gallery. Turps Banana Part 1 and 2, Marabini Gallery, Milan, Bologna. 2010 LAYERS, RETROSPECTIVE, John Moores Painting Prize Show: Seongnam Art centre Cube Gallery, Seoul, korea. Art Karlsruhe: Solo presentation with Hollenbach Gallery. Collecting the new: Recent Acquisitions to the IMMA collection, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. Royal Academy Summer show. Non-identical abstraction engine, ACME gallery, L.A. Exhibitionism: The Art of Display, Temporary Wet painting No 11, Courtauld Institute, London. 2011 What If It’s All True, What Then? Mummery+Schnelle Gallery, London. Model Vs Reality, FOLD Gallery, London, selected by Alexis Harding. Absorbency Retreat, AVA Gallery, University of East London, curated by Alexis Harding. Material Worlds: Contemporary Art Society Auction, Victoria House, Bloomsbury square, London.
Hedley Roberts lives and works in Margate. He is a graduate of Central Saint Martins BA Fine Art and the Royal College of Art MA Fine Art Printmaking, and also has a Doctorate in Fine Art from the University of East London. He has been a Royal College of Art Fine Art Fellow and a Stanley Picker Fellow at Kingston University. He has worked for 20 years in Higher Education and until recently was head of Art & Design at the University of East London. He now leads art and design research. He runs a number of artists Residency projects, including ‘Directional Forces’ which has has taken place in Germany, Serbia, Italy and Greece and involved over 60 artists since 2011.
Solo exhibition: ‘Hedley Roberts’, Wolo Gallery, Kuala Lumpur (2014), and ‘The Lovers’, Herrick Gallery, London (2014).
Selected group exhibitions: Pravac Sila, Ozone Belgrade, Serbia (2014); Factual Nonsense, Red Gallery, London (2014) and Sunday in the Park With Ed, Display Gallery, London (2014). His work has been presented nationally and internationally including at the International Symposium of Electronic Arts Japan, Superdeluxe Gallery Tokyo Japan, Artoll Germany, Annexe Gallery Malaysia, Nanyang Academy of Fine Art Singapore, Susak Biennual Croatia, Ozone Belgrade, and APT. His work is in private collections in the UK, Europe and Asia.
