Cadogan Contemporary are delighted to announce a new solo exhibition of works by British artist Sam Lock. Co-curated by Maria Abramenko and Freddie Burness The Fragment and the Infinite' is made up of 'sections' of a fifty-metre roll of canvas made in Lock's studio in Brighton.
Each painting is a part of something bigger, a process that had, at its centre, the idea of not being able to see the whole picture. The complete work is now lost, existing only as component 'Sections' each representing a moment in time that is also a part of a whole.
Exhibiting these pieces together for the first time, Maria Abramenko and Freddie Burness, co-curators of this exhibition, sought a space that would speak to Sam Lock's works. The exposed concrete, abundance of natural light and scale of the Scalo Lambrate site in Milan complement the negative space in the pieces, 'the presence of absence', allowing the paintings to breathe.
Lock's work has often been inspired by the layering of time, memory and history in space, greatly influenced by the time he spent studying in Rome. Milan, with its juxtaposition of old and new, and its pivotal position in historical artistic movements as well as those of the past century such as Arte Povera, corresponds with many of the themes in Sam Lock's paintings.
Sam Lock paints viscerally. Using blowtorches and sanders as well as the brush, he sees each canvas as a battlefield. Sanded, stained, scorched, and sealed, each work is the result of a continuous cycle of making–a repeated process of building up and destruction. The works have an elusive feeling, revealing layers of past images and tones that drop in and out of themselves. This sense of painterly archaeology brings attention to the movement of the mind and the residue of action, and the pervading sense of unpredictability. The physicality of Lock's process is evident throughout his paintings. His expansive gestures and sweeping movements on a monumental scale as well as his smaller works, where marks made by the movement of the wrist are added to paper, translate into an energetic artistic presence visible throughout his works.
Cadogan is an independent contemporary art gallery with spaces in London, Hampshire and Milan. For over forty years our mission has been to represent, support and curate the work of a diverse roster of emerging and established artists. We care deeply about longevity, developing the careers of our artists and the journey of our collectors.
