22 June – 28 July 2012
Unit 9C, CIP 133 Copeland Road, Peckham, London SE15 3SN
Open: Friday and Saturday 12pm – 6pm or by appointment
Work Starts Here, Tom Lovelace’s second solo show at Son Gallery in Peckham is a highly resolved exhibition from an artist who I imagine, from this carefully arranged show, is something of a perfectionist in his practice. The exhibition comprises three carefully self-referencing parts. Lining the side walls of the gallery are a series of photographs of sculptures in an anonymous gallery space – actually, industrial objects, proposed as sculptures with what appears to be a person – perhaps the artist –walking or balancing somewhat precariously on the sculptures. A set of steel braces, a heavy industrial pipe – sometimes upended to behave like a plinth, and sometimes arranged to draw the viewer’s attention to its sculptural form and beauty through tension and load. The exhibition presents some of these sculptural objects, referencing the construction industry, alongside their photographed portraits. The meeting of industry and art is a principle theme in the artist’s work but the residue of performance is alluded to also. At the far end of the gallery two steel loops are arranged underneath a photograph, Blue Loop, 2012. The juxtaposition of the arcing sculpture and the photograph, Blue Loop, on the far back wall sets the whole exhibition in motion and encapsulates the cyclical relationship between sculpture, photography and performance that Lovelace explores through his acknowledgment of image, object and intervention. An elegant show that I would highly recommend if you’re in South London.
Image: Tom Lovelace, Work Starts Here, installation view, 2012, courtesy the artist and Son Gallery