exhibition

Reflecting, Resurfing, Reworking

Artists Cheryl Donegan, Rannva Kunoy, Thomas Livesey

18.Oct.07 - 17.Nov.07
Wednesday - Saturday 11-6

Private View, 18.Oct.07, 6-8pm

Brown
Lower Ground Floor,
42 Hoxton Square
London N1 6PB
+44 (0)7983 566 099
kimberly@browngallery.co.uk
www.browngallery.co.uk
Tube Old Street, Liverpool Street, Shoreditch / Hoxton

Brown is pleased to present new work by Cheryl Donegan, Rannva Kunoy and Thomas Livesey. The commonality between these three artists arises through the treatment of surface and the arrival of form through a negation or removal of elements. While Donegan's work has a DIY aesthetic that demonstrates an abstraction of details from modern life through a rigorous undermining of properties, Livesey manipulates the form, colour and material through cutting away, layering, and positioning until the object becomes able to stand on its own as a balanced combination of properties. Kunoy's work incorporates this use of reworking the physical in order to free mental associations, allowing the subject matter to become possibility that emerges through the accumulation of elements and form.

Cheryl Donegan creates her works by layering cardboard, mylar and paint. By cutting into each piece, they produce an image that articulates the medium as well as the physical process of making. For the five pieces included in the exhibition, Donegan drew inspiration from various city scenes, such as scratched subway windows and discarded plastic appliances. Using an X-Acto knife, she cuts through the sheen and sterility of the surface. The original texture and quality is broken down, mimicking the wear and tear of city life. In doing so, she emphasises the gesture and physicality of how something morphs or disintegrates.

This idea of cutting away and reworking the surface in order to arrive at an intuitive balance of form also surfaces in the work of Thomas Livesey. The materials used, in this case wood, oil-based paint and spray paint, help inform the straightforward linearity of his work and activity. The process is revealed in the shape each work takes. Livesey finds inspiration in the imminent problem of balance without symmetry, and his pieces function through the careful return and consideration of the qualities that define surface, namely shape and light, and how the relationships between these elements help form the intention of the object.

The work of Rannva Kunoy also entails a certain reduction of form and origin but does so through the accumulation of layers. Starting from an image, most often an abstract work from artists as diverse as Antonio Saura and Nicholas de Stael, she continuously adds layer upon layer of paint until the image takes its own shape. It is neither figurative nor abstract. It becomes a fog where there is just enough information to guess where the image derived from but not enough to indicate a particular direction or destination. As opposed to Donegan, who physically cuts away at the cardboard, Kunoy severs the mental alliances associated with the original work. By layering the same type of imagery repeatedly, no decisive form constitutes the subject matter. Rather, the viewer senses a provocative ambiguity and possibility informed by the visual flexibility of light, shading and colour.

Cheryl Donegan was born New Haven, Connecticut in 1962. She received her BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1984 and her MFA from Hunter College in 1990. She has had past solo exhibitions at White Columns, New York and Oliver Kamm/5BE, New York. Past group exhibitions include Into Me / Out of Me at PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; Artist's Choice (curated by Mona Hatoum) at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Rooms With a View at the Guggenheim Museum Soho, New York,; Whitney Biennial in 1995, New York; and Aperto at the 1993 Venice Biennale. She lives and works in New York City.

Rannva Kunoy was born in the Faroe Islands in 1975. She received her BFA in Painting from City and Guilds of London Art School in 1999 and her MFA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2001. Past exhibitions include Diana Stigter, Amsterdam; Handsome Young Doctor at Cubitt, London; and Shangri-La at Alexandre Pollazzon, London. She lives and works in London.

Thomas Livesey was born in Derbyshire in 1983. He earned his BA from Middlesex University in 2005 and expects to receive his MFA in 2008 from the Royal Academy of Art, London. Past exhibitions include Interim at the Royal Academy of Art, London and a solo exhibition at Peles Empire, Los Angeles. He lives and works in London.