V1 GALLERY PROUDLY PRESENTS
Two Loops
An exhibition by Jon Pilkington
A Journey into two loops is akin to a trip to a botanical garden for painting where uncharted species sprout from secret corners. Organic shapes twist from figuration to abstraction and vice versa. Recognizable shapes; flowers, leaves, suns, clouds and horizons evaporate only to return distilled as glyphs. Pilkington repeats the glyphs, studies them, enlarges them, destroys them, paints over them and repeats. The act of painting becomes ritualistic. A caveman’s canvas where symbols are repeated and erased over time, a language lost and found, not suitable for verbal translation.
Multiple layers of grittier under paint are washed out. Seductive layers of lush colours are applied on top to lure the less careful of the species closer to the surface. Beauty meets the eye while a darker undertow is just below the surface. Pilkington knows and recognizes the evolution of painting in his work. He knows the constant threat of extinction. He knows the dinosaurs, the bumblebees, the lions and the sheep. Perhaps that is why Pilkington’s new work combines the fluent urgency of drawing with painterly surface and tactility. Condensed gestures are merged with loose strokes. The new body of work is both fragmented, marked by velocity, and pleasingly coherent. There is a push and a pull. A rumble in the jungle.
Jon Pilkington, Born 1990, lives and works in London. He received his Master of Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design and graduated with distinction in 2013. Concurrently with his first solo exhibition at V1 Gallery he is part of a three persons show at Rod Barton in London. He has recently exhibited with Peter Von Kant, London, Notting Hill Arts Club, London, and Archiv Massiv, Leipzig.