Merlin James

Maureen Paley is pleased to represent Merlin James and to present his first solo exhibition at the gallery and Studio M. His practice, which includes curating and art-critical writing as well as painting, has developed a deep aesthetic understanding over some four decades. This show combines recently finished paintings with ones selected from his studio inventory in Glasgow, the earliest dating to 1982. I am actually working with temporality. I’m using the way work gets old, or changes over time, physically and in terms of its readings. I’m interested in how paintings time travel."[1] The exhibition includes paintings of the Arnold Circus bandstand, an east London landmark visible from the Studio M window. He first painted and drew the bandstand in the mid 1980s when he had a studio nearby on Redchurch Street, and he has recently returned to the motif. It is one of a range of such architectural structures — including bridges, piers, toll booths, windmills — which have recurred throughout his work: "I’m painting about grouping and division… about boundaries and enclosures, boxes and compartments."[2] Merlin James (b. 1960, Cardiff, Wales) is a painter living and working in Glasgow, Scotland. Selected solo exhibitions include: Some Steps, Kunstsaele, Berlin, Germany (2023); Long Game, CCA, Glasgow, UK (2016); Signal Box, Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (2013); Parasol Unit, London, UK (2013); Wales Pavilion, 52nd International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (2007); Easel Paintings, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, UK (2004); Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK (1996). Selected group exhibitions include: Healing, Sikkema Jenkins & Co, New York, (2024); Mixing It Up, Hayward Gallery, London, UK (2021); Merlin James / David Schutter; After Poussin / After Ruisdael, A-M-G5, Glasgow, UK (2019); Slow Painting, Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds, UK (2019); La Vita Materiale, The Goma, Madrid, Spain (2017); Towards Night, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, UK (2016); SS Blue Jacket, Karst, Plymouth, UK (2013); Things We Lost in the Fire, Leicester City Art Gallery, UK (2007); The Edge of the Real, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2004); Yes! I am a long way from home, Huddersfield Art Gallery, Huddersfield, UK (2003); East End Academy, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (1996). His work is included in collections of the Arts Council England, UK; Brooklyn Museum, USA; Dallas Museum of Art, USA; Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, France; National Museum of Wales, UK; HUA Art Museum, Shenzhen, China; San Antonio Art Museum, US A; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA; Tate, London, UK. 1 - Merlin James: Signal Box, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2013 2 - Merlin James: Signal Box, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2013

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