Jerwood Solo Presentations is now in its third year and continues to provide a much needed platform for emerging artists to make and display new work. This year Rob Crosse, Susie Green and Georgia Horgan have been selected, displaying a diverse range of work which has some interesting shared themes.
In Rob Crosse’s room he is exhibiting a group of three photographs pinned and taped to the walls. Each image shows part or parts of a man’s nude body - identifiable as white and possibly over 50. I say possibly as the images are edited in such a way as to only give away a section of skin, be it a protruding belly, an arm, leg or back. None of the images seek to flatter their subject, instead they seem to suggest a certain pathos. Slightly hidden away is a video of somewhat aged racing cars, the camera focuses on their rattling and juddering aged engines. These aren’t sleek F1 machines, rather bodies on their last legs, men peering inside to discuss how they might be kept going for one last go round the track.
Susie Green’s work is presented in the first gallery space, which doubles as a general public space, which suits it a great deal, showing off her architectural sensibilities with arc-like paintings in arresting colours. Hidden deeper within these great spaces of colour are smaller works on paper / collages which, upon closer inspection, reveal extremely delicate constructed images and textures that allude to S&M or at least ‘leather play’. The contrast of the delicacy of the images - which are constructed out of tissue paper - whilst perhaps illustrating something extremely hard, such as two pierced nipples connected by a chain, is extremely arresting.
Georgia Horgan is showing, Dear Barb, an engrossing video about The Poor Whore’s Petition, a satirical letter allegedly written by Elizabeth Creswell, one of the most successful sex workers and madams of the English seventeenth century. As the narrator, in both written and spoken word explores this historical event they are joined by a contemporary protagonist exploring the underbelly and heights (tracing the place of the riots that lead to the creation of the petition) of the Barbican Centre, a place itself rich in historical layers.
The 2018 Jerwood Solo Presentations artists were selected by the Jerwood Visual Arts team: Sarah Williams, Head of Programme and Oliver Fuke, former Gallery Manager.
