Pile Up
Carl Rowe

19th — 30th November
Private View - 20th November 6 — 8pm

Open daily 11 — 3pm
Closed Sundays. Free admission.

The paintings, prints and objects in this exhibition have been made over a two-year period between the start of 2023 and now. Subjects that keep appearing (though not really in a figurative sense) include ghosts, clowns, tools, geometry and gemstones, all of which become entangled in an overblown fairground aesthetic. I’m not suggesting that there is some magical force at play here, simply that these subjects occupy my thoughts.

There is a graphic quality to the paintings, which borrow substantially from my long association with screenprint. The paintings are characterised by a simple stencilling technique, resulting in sharp edges and occasional bleeds, bridges between floating areas, layering of translucent form, and economic use of colour and tone. But the decorative elements are a veneer under which there is a struggle, a feverish and encrypted portrayal of psychological, social and political subjects – a pile up.

Perhaps the titles help to decipher the imagery – Dumbbell and Gem, Strongman, First Aid, but even here I think there is a veil, a code, an aberration. I like using German words because they seem direct and to the point. I have become attracted to misspellings such as ‘kloun’ in place of ‘clown’, because such words evoke advertising techniques, deception or error. I am drawn to words that jump out as shapes and defy exact definition. Titles are important and sometimes text becomes the imagery. When I was an art student in the early eighties, my subject matter came from the eroded posters and billboards around Manchester. These random fragments of image and text broadcast an alternative and surreal urban narrative. I was also lured by the post-punk scene and the graphic design of record labels such as Rough Trade, Stiff, and Factory. I think the potency of Punk and Post-Punk resided in buffoonery, borrowing as much from DaDa as it did from the Situationists. The futility, pointlessness and clowning enhanced the visceral messages of dissent. These historic references surface in Pile Up and align with contemporary associations.

There is humour in this exhibition. The works shown are imbued with visual trickery, sensual sorcery, goofy cartoonery, but also a sense of sadness and malevolence. Outside of art I do what I can to address what I perceive as the toxic and destructive force of humankind. In earlier work I have been explicit about socio-political issues. But this body of work is indirect, more like the incidental surrealism of those Mancunian walls from the eighties.

Email: rowe.carl@btinternet.com
Instagram: @carlroweart
Website: www.carlrowe.co.uk