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Dale Lewis: Fat, Sugar, Salt

Archive exhibition
19 January - 10 March 2018
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Dale Lewis, Club Tropicana, 2017
Dale Lewis, Club Tropicana, 2017

Private View | Thursday 18 January 2018, 6-8pm

 

Edel Assanti is pleased to present Fat, Sugar, Salt, Dale Lewis’ second solo exhibition with the gallery.

 

Dale Lewis’ paintings depict the artist’s personal experiences, painted from memory. Fat, Sugar, Salt reflects on the realities of contemporary urban life, focusing on subjects drawn from the artist’s immediate surroundings in and around his home in east London.

 

Lewis’ paintings inherit the scale, compositional and narrative structures of canonical art historical painting – renaissance and religious scenes in particular – with devices of metamorphosis, transcendence, spirituality and sexuality serving as mainstays. These traditions are as much inverted as they are co-opted to suit Lewis’ ends: whilst monumental scale was conventionally reserved for fittingly worthy themes, Lewis focuses on what he observes around him: social immobility, consumerist excess, binge drinking culture, gang violence, bad diet, class divides, family life, faith and 9-5 jobs.

 

The spontaneous creation of imagery in the work is revealed by the impasto, energetic application of paint. Lewis’ lyrical style of painting often leaves his works in a state of suspension – underdone rather than overworked – with areas of exposed raw canvas integrated into the composition, and visible impressions of the stabs of brushes rubbed against their surface.

 

Mundane and extraordinary scenes are given equal prominence, gaining expression through allegorical distortion. In Family Fortunes, the Lewis family Christmas dinner is transformed into a deranged banquet, in which the artist himself is served for dinner – conveying the artistic anxiety of being on show for public consumption – with the traditional goose and pork courses standing in as guests. Taking its title from the popular 90s TV programme, on closer inspection, the carnivorous horror show gives way to a tender portrayal of the complexity of the family environment, and the unique freedom it provides to exaggerate and express oneself without judgment or embarrassment.

 

Club Tropicana, deriving its title (and exotic colour scheme) from the 80s hit by Wham!, depicts a cross-section of multicultural society via the checkout line of a Morrison’s supermarket, reflecting on the monotonous drudgery of day to day life as a contrast to the fantastic possibility of hedonistic escape. A pub brawl is transformed into a kaleidoscopic, orgiastic whirlwind in Devil’s Juice; compositionally referencing Luca Signorelli’s fresco The Damned Cast to Hell (1499- 1504), the painting captures the disorientation of a fight in its use of overlapping bodies and spiralling red and black lines. Highlighting the struggle for a sense of individual space that underlies urban existence, the raw machismo and sexuality of the scene is accentuated by the revellers being stripped of their clothing.

 

Fat, Sugar, Salt is full of humorous and grotesque depictions of ‘otherness’ that give way to sensitive, transcendent portrayals of the people Lewis encounters. In these renderings of London life, Lewis taps into a familiar, quintessentially British artistic tradition of addressing the tough realities of contemporary society and its fringes through a prism of dark humour and allegory.

 

Lewis completed a BA in Fine Art at London Guildhall in 2002, an MFA at Brighton in 2006 and graduated the Turps Studio Programme in 2015. He was the recipient of the 2016 Jerwood Painting Fellowship, and completed the Zabludowicz Residency in New York City in 2017. In spring 2018, Lewis will undertake a residency at the Arsenal in Montreal. Lewis’ work features in international collections including the Saatchi Collection, David Roberts Art Foundation and the Zabludowicz Collection. Lewis lives and works in London. 

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Works
  • Dale Lewis, Club Tropicana, 2017
    Dale Lewis, Club Tropicana, 2017
  • Dale Lewis, Regent's Canal, 2017
    Dale Lewis, Regent's Canal, 2017
  • Dale Lewis, Special K, 2017
    Dale Lewis, Special K, 2017
  • Dale Lewis, Devil's Juice, 2018
    Dale Lewis, Devil's Juice, 2018
  • Dale Lewis, Family Fortunes, 2018
    Dale Lewis, Family Fortunes, 2018
  • Dale Lewis, Signature Collection, 2017
    Dale Lewis, Signature Collection, 2017
  • Dale Lewis, White Lightening, 2017
    Dale Lewis, White Lightening, 2017
Events
  • Dale Lewis in conversation With Sacha Craddock

    Dale Lewis in conversation With Sacha Craddock

    31 January 2018
    Wednesday 31 January | A conversation was held between Dale Lewis and critic and curator Sacha Craddock, on the subject of Lewis' 2018 exhibition at Edel Assanti, Fat, Sugar, Salt. Sacha Craddock is an independent art critic, curator and consultant based in London. She is chair of Bloomberg New Contemporaries and co-curator of the 2017 Turner Prize. Currently, Sacha is conducting an independent enquiry into public, private, educational and institutional aspects of British art in 1988, before the advent of the internet. 'Dale Lewis: Fat, Sugar, Salt' was on view...
    Read more
News
  • Dale Lewis in Frieze

    Dale Lewis in Frieze

    '‘Fat, Sugar, Salt': Dale Lewis's Carnival of Brexit Britain' by Daniel Culpan Read more
  • Dale Lewis in Elephant Magazine

    Dale Lewis in Elephant Magazine

    'Dale Lewis: Pass the Salt' Read more
  • Dale Lewis in Apollo

    Dale Lewis in Apollo

    'The joys of junk food' by Tim Smith-Laing Read more
  • Dale Lewis in Artlyst

    Dale Lewis in Artlyst

    'Dale Lewis And Emma Cousin The Painterly Post Digital Vernacular' by Paul Carey-Kent Read more
  • Dale Lewis in the Financial Times

    Dale Lewis in the Financial Times

    'Critics' Choice: Dale Lewis, Fat, Sugar, Salt' Read more
  • Dale Lewis in Them

    Dale Lewis in Them

    '7 Queer Artists Who Are Changing the Game in 2018' by Zachary Small Read more
  • Dale Lewis in Artforum

    Dale Lewis in Artforum

    'Critics' Pick: Dale Lewis 'Fat, Sugar, Salt'' by Zachary H. Small Read more
  • Dale Lewis interview in It's Nice That

    Dale Lewis interview in It's Nice That

    '"I like the idea of giving up on trying to do the right thing”: inside the chaotic world of artist Dale Lewis' by Bryony Stone Read more
Media

Dale Lewis in conversation with Sacha Craddock | 31 January 2018 at Edel Assanti from Edel Assanti on Vimeo.

Related artist

  • Dale Lewis

    Dale Lewis

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