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Laurence Watchorn is a young painter from South London who recently graduated from The Slade School of Art in 2022. He is also the co-founder of OOZ, a music collective based in South-East London.
His first solo exhibition is composed of a series of large-scale abstract paintings that are unstretched and hung away from the gallery walls. ‘Skin Crawl’, the title of the show, comes from the artist’s holistic approach to painting, which is characterised by the belief that the work and the artist become one entity. This intimate connection with his work enables him to attribute skin-like qualities to his canvases on which he can incise his soul and express innermost feeling.
This approach has been honed while on a residency programme at The Bomb Factory Art Foundation South and investigates picture-making as a synthesis of spiritual inquiry.
In his large-scale abstracted paintings, there is a lightness of touch and spontaneity. The artist employs an automatic drawing style that deliberately allows chance and accident to create marks.
Archaic imagery, philosophies and musical landscapes are hinted at within his work with signs, words and symbols eluding to ancient scripts or stone tablets and sonic elements made visual.
This particular style of drawing to a large extent is freed from rational control and may be attributed to the artist’s subconscious.
Information
Private View: 6th October 6-9pm
Dates: 7th-29th October 2022
Opening Times: Wednesday - Sunday, 11:00 - 18:00
Location: The Bomb Factory Art Foundation, Archway
Transport: Overground - Upper Holloway, Northern Line - Archway
Contact: info@bombfactory.org.uk