Charlie Billingham
Jam Standard
October 02, 2014 - November 08, 2014
Gallery 2

Press Release
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Brand New Gallery is glad to announce Jam Standard, the first Italian solo exhibition by British artist Charlie Billingham.

 

The prodigious and irreverent Charlie Billingham creates decorative paintings and installations using a language borrowed from interior design, art history, graphics and prints.

In his highly subjective painting practice, Billingham takes inspiration from memorable images dating back to the historical phase in between the late 18th and early 19th  century, a period that was marked by strong social transformations that shaped the major European cities, and led to the progressive affirmation of the modern bourgeoisie, with the resulting renewal of the Western taste.

Among the examples of inspiration - ranging from artistic expression to behavioral quirks - it is possible to include James Gillray’s etchings, George Cruikshank’s novels illustrations, the aristocrats excesses of the Regency Age and the ironic attitude of detachment from the reality, typical of fashionable dandyism.

When he paints, Billingham is focused on the surface, the pigment and the texture. He uses acrylic paints, oil paints and spray varnishes to apply them on canvas, polyester, linen, tapestries and wood panels.

It is a practice that questions and interprets painting, honoring the stretch.

Billingham’s art presents bizarre characters, musical instruments and animals portrayed in showy chromatic combinations: sometimes parts of the images are slender, sometimes awkward, always ready on the stage.

“Épater la bourgeoisie”.

(Domenico de Chirico)

 

Charlie Billingham (b. 1984 in London, UK) lives and works in London.

Billingham received in 2008 a MA Fine Art from the Edinburgh College of Art and University of Edinburgh. In 2013 he received a Post Graduate Diploma from the Royal Academy Schools, London.

Selected solo exhibitions include: Free time, Email, Zuoz, CH (2014); Tender 2 The Sunshine Room, OHWOW, Los Angeles (2014); Coming Out, Royal Academy Schools, London (2013); Hunting Dogs, Hunting Cats, Marcelle Joseph Projects, Ascot, UK (2013). His works have been included in recent group shows: Art Britannia, Miami (2013); Open Heart Surgery, Moving Museum, London (2013); Febreeze, Kinman Gallery, London (2013); Clay Pipe, HFBK Gallery, Hamburg (2013); Assemble, Liquid Courage Gallery, Nassau (2013); New Order: British Art Today, Saatchi Gallery, London (2013); Another Room, R O O M, Artspace, London (2012); Premiums Interim Projects, Royal Academy, London (2012); Little White Lies, Aubin Gallery, London (2011); Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London (2011); Cafe Gallery, Royal Academy, London (2011); What Is Not But Could Be If, 12 Vyner Street, London (2010); RSA New Contemporaries, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (2009)