BOBBY DOWLER at Hannah Barry Gallery / London

BOBBY DOWLER 
Hooking On

Hannah Barry Gallery
4 Holly Grove
Peckham, London  SE15 5DF 

http://www.hannahbarry.com/

12 November – 19 December 2015














We are pleased to announce the fourth solo exhibition at the gallery by Bobby Dowler (b. 1983, London, lives and works in Paris).

“For the last few years I have continued re-forming ‘paintings’ and their ‘stretcher-frame-devices’ as objects whilst also drawing on scraps of pages from old notebooks. My re-use of these materials, pre-used and originally purchased and/or dumped by others, began as a way of being resourceful during a time of financial restriction, but soon however became a habit after they stimulated subject matter. They also offered me unique points from where I could improvise on. 

When making the ‘Painting-Objects’ I relied upon a mode of operating that involved following a sequence of procedural manoeuvres - senseless probing, protracted manipulating, useless looking and searching – in order to stimulate the unconventional decisions that attempt to open up my deeper insight. 

When this happens I find myself able to discover new experience through the process of making and eventually this triggers an unpremeditated sense of what is needed to be done in order to kick each particular work towards its ‘surprise’ conclusion.  

My drawings are inspired from real life and are made quickly. They start from more of an appreciation of a person or object but take on a life of their own. I can never foresee what precipitates the conclusion of a particular work because the developments are essentially unpredictable. 

My works subvert predictable results and this is what makes it experientially interesting for me to want to continue.”

The new show will consist of works that the artist has assembled from wooden stretcher frame devices and painted canvas and biro drawings on pages ripped out of notebooks. The title of the exhibition alludes to the idea that the artist acts as an intermediary between the known and unknown worlds through making work.

Bobby Dowler’s recent residency and solo project ‘Painting-Objects’, took place at MAD Agency, Paris (Spring, 2015) organised by Anatole Maggiar. He was a resident artist at Villa Lena Foundation, Tuscany (Spring, 2014) upon the invitation of Lena Evstafieva. He co-initiated the Fokidos artist project space in Athens in 2013 and an experimental poetry press, Friary Road House in London in 2011. He co-initiated the Lyndhurst Way exhibitions in 2006 in London out of which grew our gallery and Bold Tendencies.