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Jo Bruton
Run
7 – 14 April 2018
Webster Road
Jo Bruton's second show at Matt's Gallery sees the artist expanding her practice as a painter into a series of printed wallpapers. Hand painted, digitally produced and then pasted to the walls of the gallery, the piece has been conceived to respond directly to the dimensions of the 3 x 3 x 3 m gallery space.
Run plays on the idea of repetition or routine as well as a command for immediate action. A first outing for this new body of work, the artist has developed elements of her work into a series of tessellating motifs which form a ground for a range of actions and interventions. Rich in references, Bruton's work draws together biographical elements alongside research carried out at the V&A's Wallpaper Archive and art historical nods to the work of Georgia O'Keefe and Nancy Spero.
The work remains reconfigurable - mobile painted wooden panels punctuate the space with signs that navigate an environment, moving beyond the frame to occupy the space of the gallery. Deserts, mountains, tumble weeds and flowers mix with performers holding associations to time and place, playing on artifice, repetition and scale. The artist negotiates problems of location and the stability of the subject.
Run is a continuation of Bruton's exploration into the space of painting, extending notions of form and its context by evoking narratives through the process of making. Fragments of decoration create an environment to navigate where a female presence and the desire to act within and occupy that space are central to her work.
This is the fourth in a series of 10-day shows at 92 Webster Road.
Matt’s Gallery thanks the Arts Council England and Ron Henocq Fine Art for their generous support.