ARTISTS
John Court: The work between the lines
Spacex presents the first UK solo exhibition by Finland based artist John Court. New works will be shown alongside drawings and performance produced over the last fifteen years. His output includes performance, sculpture and video, but he considers all his work to be fundamentally concerned with drawing, in that drawing connects the elements of line, movement, space and time.
Court is severely dyslexic. He began drawing at the age of nineteen, using it as a means to comprehend and come to terms with the difficulties and negative experiences he had gone through at school. During this process he gained self-confidence through learning to read and write in his own way. The theme of control interests him, where the act of writing becomes an encounter with (dis)empowerment.
In Court鈥檚 drawings it is difficult to decipher the hand of the artist, his involvement is almost devoid and hidden from view. In some instances his works look as if they have been made by a machine, possessing a reductivist quality and a sense of purity. However, in reality as with all his works, they explore time, slowness, attention to detail and precision. The exploration of time is employed in the process, the drawings take months to create.
Alongside the varied drawings, the exhibition will also include a series of films and documentary, trace material from earlier performance works and a selection of sculptural (three dimensional) drawing works, some of which gallery visitors will be able to interact with and engage with their tactile nature. In Court鈥檚 work we will witness the parallels between drawing/sketching and text/language. His work investigates the ways in which language intersects with drawing.
Spacex has commissioned a new performance by Court that will mark the closing of the exhibition. Viewers will witness Court pushing his body beyond technique and exhaustion. The performance will last for eight hours, this duration is based on the time of an average working day. The piece will take place in the gallery space and could be read quite literally as marking time.
Spacex presents the first UK solo exhibition by Finland based artist John Court. New works will be shown alongside drawings and performance produced over the last fifteen years. His output includes performance, sculpture and video, but he considers all his work to be fundamentally concerned with drawing, in that drawing connects the elements of line, movement, space and time.
Court is severely dyslexic. He began drawing at the age of nineteen, using it as a means to comprehend and come to terms with the difficulties and negative experiences he had gone through at school. During this process he gained self-confidence through learning to read and write in his own way. The theme of control interests him, where the act of writing becomes an encounter with (dis)empowerment.
In Court鈥檚 drawings it is difficult to decipher the hand of the artist, his involvement is almost devoid and hidden from view. In some instances his works look as if they have been made by a machine, possessing a reductivist quality and a sense of purity. However, in reality as with all his works, they explore time, slowness, attention to detail and precision. The exploration of time is employed in the process, the drawings take months to create.
Alongside the varied drawings, the exhibition will also include a series of films and documentary, trace material from earlier performance works and a selection of sculptural (three dimensional) drawing works, some of which gallery visitors will be able to interact with and engage with their tactile nature. In Court鈥檚 work we will witness the parallels between drawing/sketching and text/language. His work investigates the ways in which language intersects with drawing.
Spacex has commissioned a new performance by Court that will mark the closing of the exhibition. Viewers will witness Court pushing his body beyond technique and exhaustion. The performance will last for eight hours, this duration is based on the time of an average working day. The piece will take place in the gallery space and could be read quite literally as marking time.
Artists on show
Contact details
