Lacey Contemporary Gallery | 8 Clarendon Cross | W11 4AP

29th June 14th July 2016

DAVID PRICE

DREAMLAND
6 May – 6 June 2015

In his third solo exhibition at Art First, Price presents a new series of works in which he re-imagines Piranesi’s illustrations of ancient Rome as a corrupted amusement park called Dreamland.

In 2012 Price moved his studio to Margate, home of the real Dreamland. Fascinated by the ruined remains of this resort that in its heyday had been modelled on a park of the same name in Coney Island USA, he found a metaphor for the degraded concept of the ‘American Dream’ that once symbolised the hopes of a generation in a bright Modern future, where everyone could enjoy the rewards of labour and democracy. In our current social and political climate the dreams of a democratic, meritocratic utopia have crumbled along with the Dreamlands built to symbolise and celebrate them. Price’s work privileges a choreography of architectural fragments that expose humanity’s complex relations with the built environment and renders quiet, intimate, beatific scenes with apocalyptic significance.

There is more to Price’s outlook than mere doom and gloom however. Piranesi’s classical etchings were as much a celebration of architectural majesty and human artifice as they were a meditation on entropy and abandonment. In his contemporary ‘capricci’ Price infuses plenty of energy and wit amidst the ruins. The vibrant, shimmering colours and almost hologramatic off-set brushstrokes of the paintings suggest a fevered and fertile imagination.

The various tableau depicted have about them a quality of the dream-state – of magical realism. Strange temples and altars abound, side by side with funfair rides and signs. Explorers, residents, survivors... the nature of the human figures that appear in several of the works is ambiguous. Their presence though suggests an optimism about the future – and this may indeed be another reflection of the artist’s immediate surroundings: the Kent coast being in the process of significant regeneration and cultural investment – a site not just of a faded past but also an intriguing and evolving future, and the backdrop for the life of the artist and his young family.

Price’s studies in printmaking at the RCA (2006–9) continue to inform his primary practice of painting where each colour is painted separately, unmixed, directly onto the gesso surface. The brilliance and clarity of his imagery release astonishing details that delight the viewer only after careful observation.

David Price studied at Edinburgh College of Art before completing two MA's at Newcastle (fine art) and the Royal College of Art (printmaking). He has held a fellowship in printmaking at the Royal Academy since 2010. He was selected for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2009, and first showed with AF Projects in 2010.

For more information please contact Matt Incledon – matt@artfirst.co.uk / +44 (0)20 7734 0386

Art First, 21 Eastcastle Street, London W1W 8DD t: +44 (0)207 734 0386 e: info@artfirst.co.uk

www.artfirst.co.uk 

In 2014 I two paintings selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. In the Small Western Room, Still Life -Winter has shown, and in the Large Western Room, selected and curated by Eileen Cooper, In The Sun Born Over and Over.

The Close of the Silver Age 17 May – 23 June 2012 

Art First is delighted to be representing David Price. The title for his first exhibition in the main gallery space is taken from a small painting by Cranach the Elder in the collection of the National Gallery, London. Price brings fresh interpretations to the enduring themes that engage his interest in Renaissance painting, through a distinctly modern lens. The brushstrokes of Cranach, the delicate lines of Dürer and the sweeping panoramas of Mantegna and the Brueghel dynasty are evident visible influences within his own tangled and complex landscape compositions. 

Alongside historical and pseudo-religious themes, Price asserts a contemporary reading, responding to the resonance and impact that paintings can have 500 years after they were painted. The signature painting Close of the Silver Age has much of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Ozymandias about it, as heroic statues crumble and moulder along a once grand boulevard being reclaimed by the natural world. Science fiction, often a fertile ground for the re-imagining of mythology, lends its own imagery; Price’s painting of The Runners depicts an Eden-like pastoral landscape inhabited by two figures who bear a striking resemblance to Michael York and Jenny Agutter in the 1976 film Logan’s Run.

“By painting Logan and Jessica as Adam and Eve I wanted to examine the parallels with this timeless story and to mock man’s hopeless endeavours to understand existence through religion. The paintings I use as reference are ‘Orpheus’ by Roland Savery, ‘The Garden of Eden’ by Jan Breughel and the 19th Century painting ‘Heroic Landscape With a Rainbow’ by Joseph Anton Koch.

As Price borrows, re-distributes and weaves together strands of historical and popular culture his own distinctive vision emerges. He may take his lead from historic paintings, but he reworks the themes where they seem relevant, with a seriousness and an honest investigation of enduring truths that span civilization as we know it.

David Price studied at Edinburgh College of Art before completing two MA's at Newcastle (fine art) and the Royal College of Art (printmaking). He has held a fellowship in printmaking at the Royal Academy since 2010. He was selected for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2009, and first showed with AF Projects in 2010. 

Alma Enterprises is pleased to present the first London solo show of artist David M Price. The show will be the result of the artist's two month residency at Alma Enterprises where he has developed a new piece of work in response to Alma's manifesto.

The manifesto challenges artists to produce an individual work that results from a lengthy engagement with the space usually in the form of a residency.

Price's recent practice has been notable for his exquisite copperplate etchings depicting re-imagined historical landscapes and allegorical scenes. For his residency at Alma Enterprises he has developed a detailed wall drawing in ink on the entirety of the gallery walls.

Price's concerns and influences seen in his etchings are reflected in this chosen technique that have echoes of the landscapes seen in paintings by Cranach, Altdorfer, Durer and Bellini. He is particularly influenced by their rendering of the imagined landscape, never drawn from source or photographed. As well as facilitating speed and economy the use of black pen and ink on a background of grey reinforces the falseness of the work whilst also alluding to the composition of the wall drawing.

The design for Price's drawing is derived from the decorative patterns used in 18th Century wallpaper and furnishings which are made up of a large repeated 'frame' with the use of swags, bowers and floral decoration and set within each is a pastoral scene.

Price's drawing mimics these designs, the swathes of foliage remain, as do the bucolic scenes, but these have been mutated and are now rendered as monstrous and perverse. There are now dead trees, puckered molehills and dripping stalactites. These contemporary pastoral vignettes are reminiscent of Fragonard and Watteau.

The basis of Price's drawing is taken from his daily walk through woodland in Leytonstone. The Blakeian evocation of the sublime still being found in small pockets of London (seeing angels in Peckham Rye for example) is the underlying theme. The work suggest the possibility of sensual awe as well as weaving highly decorative Baroque forms with Gothic ecclesiastical subject matter to evoke a sense of fear and bewilderment from depictions of landscape. The mural becomes a mixture of Florentine and Venetian churches combined with an 18th century pattern, taking into account Romantic contemplation of the landscape, but fully aware of it's 21st century locus.

I studied Printmaking at the Royal College of Art between 2006 and 2009. I specialised in Intaglio prints, and most of the works that appear in this section are copper etchings printed in small editions. For more information about availability please email ddavidmprice@yahoo.co.uk