Extra Ordinary
curated by Burcu Yuksel
Unit 10 Huntingdon Estate, Bethnal Green Road, LONDON
November 8 - 24, 2017
Ballon Rouge is pleased to present Tom Lowe’s Extra Ordinary, curated by Burcu Yuksel in London, UK from November 8 - 24, 2017.
This marks Ballon Rouge’s second exhibition. Ballon Rouge’s inaugural show was in September in Istanbul; after stopping in London, Ballon Rouge will continue showing curated solo exhibitions through to next November 2018 in Los Angeles, New York, Brussels, Sao Paulo and Paris. In each of these cities are trusted collective members, Ballon Rouge’s curators. They will find and exhibit a local artist in a temporary space.
Tom Lowe is an artist who works mostly in paints and pencils, and whose work subverts what it means to see and experience as both artist and human. Lowe is interested in consumerism and commodity culture in the digital age, and analyses how we consume images and how they circulate, creating new forms of curation. In this newest series of paintings, similar to Pop art pioneers Sigmar Polke and Jasper Johns, Lowe studies the everyday; from the moon, to folded jeans, to mountain tops and brick walls, the inclusivity of his subjects and his choice to repeat and recreate his own paintings is a decided move to be matter-of-fact. The goal is to make the least creative paintings possible, a step further from a still-life these paintings are like snapshots of mundanity, each work both unique and multiplied. The result is a take on what it means to be an artist, what representation itself is, what the value of a painting is, and what role the viewer plays in all of the above.
Lowe was born in Newcastle, UK in 1982, and received his Bachelors in drawing from UAL, Camberwell College in 2006. His solo exhibitions include, Making it in America, London (2014), and They Think Its All Over, Horton Gallery, NY (2011). Lowe has exhibited works in Brussels, New York, LA, and London.