JOHN COPELAND “YOUR HEAVEN LOOKS JUST LIKE MY HELL”
2/3 Transmission (Imaginary-Rules), John Copeland © John Copeland, Courtesy Newport Street Gallery
The Newport Street Gallery in London holds American artist John Copeland‘s exhibition “Your Heaven Looks Just Like My Hell” till May 28th. Copeland’s first UK solo exhibition features twenty-five paintings, dating from 2009 to 2017, taken from the Murderme collection.
Veering between representation and abstraction, Copeland’s paintings feature tactile, impasto surfaces, rendered in oil and acrylic paint. Professing an interest in ‘any arrangement that involves interaction between the figures’, Copeland often situates his subjects in social settings – around a table, playfully balanced on one another’s shoulders, or surveying a painting as a group. The figures remain, however, deeply ambiguous, and are set against abstract backgrounds populated by curious, amorphous shapes. The unnerving quality of the imagery is heightened by the appearance of pairs or mirrored human forms, as in The Bullet Screams Past (2015).
Coinciding with this show is a solo exhibition of work by British artist Rachel Howard also at Newport Street Gallery.
John Copeland “Your Heaven Looks Just Like My Hell”
Date: February 16th – May 28th, 2018
Open: 10:00 – 18:00 (Closed on Mondays)
Place: Newport Street Gallery
Address: Newport Street, London, SE11 6AJ
Tel: +44 (0)20 3141 9320
https://www.newportstreetgallery.com
Text: Editor
