Tim Kent: Histories in Flux

2 May - 1 June 2024

Overview

Displayed on the ground floor of the gallery, Histories in Flux will showcase a new series of oil paintings by the acclaimed painter Tim Kent. The 12 paintings due to be exhibited at JD Malat Gallery are reflections of – as the artist puts it – "playing with art history". Fragmented, yet visually consistent compositions of vast interiors, sculptures, historical figures and classical nudes blur, disconnect, and reshape in front of the viewer's eyes to critically engage with the systemic power structures that the canon of Western art history fortified but contemporary art must continuously dismantle.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an online catalogue with an essay written by sculptor and writer William Corwin. Corwin comments: "Histories in Flux continues the painter’s trajectory of creating works which are both anarchic—in that they present a political viewpoint that is basically across-the-board skeptical, trusting no one—and also question the very structure through which we view space and imagery."

Histories in Flux will be Kent's second solo exhibition in London, and is particiluarly pertinent to the current and hotly contested debates around the volatily of the art world as a whole. The exhibition seeks to prompt us to interrogate the autonomous role of art within an art cosmos underlined by performativity, as well as highlight the power relations that trigger changes in aesthetic perception, the value of judgements and ways of seeing.