How To Use Colour And Manipulate People
New paintings and sculptures by Remi Rough
Almost a year after we first showed with London based Remi Rough we invite him back to unveil his only UK solo show of 2012 at Newcastle’s Unit 44. It’s been an incredibly busy twelve months for the London based artist and it’s been a pleasure to witness new objectives and ideas formulate for his upcoming show How to Use Colour and Manipulate People opening June 22. We also receive Remi on the back of possibly the most visually significant project in our nations capital transforming a Boutique, London hotel into a stunning canvas with four of his fellow Agents of Change.
There are few artists whose recent works could be described as “painting visual haikus” without the reader needing to roll their eyes, but Remi Rough is one of them. South London born and bred, Remi has been breaking boundaries for over 27 years. Transcending the traditional and somewhat idealised vision of a graffiti writer, he is passionate and unforgiving in his creative progression.
He moved from the streets to the galleries with his debut art show in 1989 and has since gone on to exhibit in London, Paris, Perth, Tokyo, Santander, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Berlin, Ibiza and more cities dotted around the globe. He also took part in New York’s Underbelly Project in 2010. As Arrested Motion wrote: “Remi is that rare breed of artist whose work you can equally enjoy in an outdoor setting and also in a gallery/home without it feeling awkward and out of context.”
His work has also appeared in countless books and was featured in the award winning ‘Ghost Village Project’. Remi was invited to speak in front of a sell- out auditorium at the Tate Modern, as part of its Street Art exhibition in 2008 and in 2009 he published his first book “Lost Colours and Alibis.”
His most recent works are a big departure from his earlier paintings. The sculptural work is reminiscent of Serra, his lines and forced shapes brought to life as 3D objects in both wood and clay. ascending to a third dimension seems almost obvious with Remi’s work. Whilst Remi’s new paintings are more referential to his earlier work from 5 years ago but using bitumen and matt emulsions and still maintaining a tight narrative of tension which is constant in his work. These are abstract works, yet they are firmly rooted in reality. “These new works made perfect sense to me… The idea of taking something into a third dimension is so obvious, yet so hard to achieve. The movements and lines within graffiti have blurred so much in the past decade I felt I needed to change the way I paint to adapt to change, I still feel that way everyday,” says Remi Rough.
The Private View will take place June 22 at 6:30pm at Unit 44 in Hoults Yard.
Hoults Yard, Unit 44, Walker Road, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE6 2HL.
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