A Body of Work, A Group Exhibition Featuring Tomas Harker, Emily Kraus, Tom White, and C. Lucy R. Whitehead
Grove Collective is pleased to present the upcoming group exhibition A Body of Work, featuring artists Tomas Harker, Emily Kraus, Tom White, and C. Lucy R. Whitehead, on view at Grove Collective’s Battersea space from February 10th to March 5th, 2022. This is the first time that Grove Collective has worked with Harker, Kraus, and White, and marks the first time that all of these artists have shown together.
When an artist paints their subjects, what is their relationship to the bodies they depict? Of course, it varies from artist to artist – one artist may choose to paint from life, while another from memory, and still a third from photographs. But as a given work takes shape, how can one articulate the relationship between that body and painting, as the image is transmuted through the eyes of the artist? Further still, the bond between the person and image is made more tenuous through potential mediation; much as a painting is not a person, a painting of a photograph of a person is no more that person themselves. But does the artist hold the capacity to almost bring this ontological stretch closer to full circle? As in the work of Tom White, can a painter painting from a photograph capture the essence of their sitter, perhaps better than the photograph itself? Similarly, as in the work of C. Lucy R. Whitehead, can the sensuality of a body be explored through its magnified curvature and tones?
