Roman Longginou, Smoke, 2023. Charcoal on paper, 140 x 114cm. Courtesy: the artist and Jennings Kerr, Robertson.

Jennings Kerr presents a group exhibition featuring works by artists David Hamilton, Daniel Hollier, Ochre Lawson, James Lieutenant, Catrin Llwyd and Roman Longginou.

“Paper has been critical in dissemination; our stories and recorded histories but also our day-to-day, the family photos and important documents. We often forget it in favour of what it supports, and maybe now it has lost a little agency in the screen age. The great newspapers going digital, the kindle and the touch screen.

Paper starting to resemble the status of the vinyl album, enjoyed for its romance and material quality and a strange thought while writing on screen to output to printer for laying on paper (and exporting to screen). It was born from cloth sheet around 200 BCE in China and immediately changed communication and the recording of information, before this it might have been clay tablet, barks, palm leaves, animal skins or various parchments. The processes vary, however the majority of pulping occurs through the use of plant based fibres and water to sheet a material through a screen.

The pieces in this show all sit on paper but empathise the negative space, the material operating in the image making, contrast underlined. This emphasis occurs through the absence of colour in most if not all the work. The drawing and painting a balance of control and chaos, light touch and expressive marks, composed or wild, and in some cases both. This show ignores any notion of hierarchical material structures, there are no ‘studies’ in the room and the artists all approach material and medium with this in mind.” – James Kerr, exhibition essay, 2023.

Opening Exhibition: Saturday 18 November, 2 – 4pm.