For his third show at HQ Simon Periton takes his scalpel to our rural landscapes and urban wastelands. Railway tracks, graffiti tagged walls and abandoned factories meet Suffolk hedgerows and an idyllic landscape taken from the repeated pattern of a net curtain. The source material travels from the pylon studded English countryside to the oil fields of the Middle East, ranging from a parochial vision of damaged arcadia to the heart of destruction on a global scale. Stairway to Heaven, a floor to ceiling multiple layered vista of oil wells and electricity pylons stands as the centre piece. The title of the show is borrowed from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s film The Edge of the World (1937), with which it shares a romantic, but slightly doom laden air, a kind of melancholic nostalgia.
Periton’s cut paper works develop the window metaphor inherent in landscape paintings, as the negative spaces create apertures. From here he plays further with dimensions and illusions of depth through his layering of coloured paper, while the large scale allows the works to engulf us like the great outdoors or the make believe stage flats of a theatre or film set. The repetition of elements, off set by slight discrepancies within mirror images enhances this natural, vegetal dimension. Furthermore there is an organic quality to the intricately cut, delicate layers of paper, strands held together in a dense web, mirroring the dichotomous fragility and tenacity of a creeper as they spread out across the gallery walls.
Simon Periton lives and works in London. He has had solo shows throughout Europe and the US, including Mint Poisoner at Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (2003) and Strategies of Desire, Kunsthaus Baselland (2004) and his work has been included in many group shows including this year’s Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy for which he was nominated for the Charles Wollaston Award. He has worked on many collaborations including working with Junya Watanabe/Comme des Garçons on their Autumn Winter Collection 2003-04. In 2004 Periton was commissioned to create works for the Channel 4 Television headquarters and is currently working on a project for the new Home Office building.
For further information please contact the gallery at +44 (0)20 7493 8611 or press@sadiecoles.com