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For OCEAN POSE, John Russell’s first exhibition at Matt’s Gallery – and also first solo show in London – THE ARTIST PRESENTS THE SPECTACLE OF FOUR TEN BY THIRTY-FIVE FEET BACK-LIT TABLEAUX, DIGITALLY PRINTED ON VINYL, DEPICTING SCENES OF PEOPLE STANDING IN A SEDUCTIVE AND INFINITE OCEAN IN THE THROES OF ECSTASY. These are people SAYING ‘YES’ TO LIFE – CAUGHT IN THE THRALL OF THE EVENT AND SPREADING THEIR DESIRE THROUGHOUT THE WORLD LIKE A CONTAGION. It may be unclear whether these poses are the result of ‘FREE WILL’ or whether they are fixed as narrative or compositional elements within a wider ‘philosophical context,’ but in fact these questions are subsidiary to the performative or ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE of the works as the staging of a staging, or PRESENTATION OF A PRESENTATION. A SELF-ARTICULATION OF THE FICTION OF AN ARTWORK-AS-EVENT-AS-PROPHECY-AND/OR CURSE OF THE UNLEASHING OF THE POWER OF THE FALSE. In this respect the SHIMMERING SUN-SOAKED PLANE OF THE OCEAN is equivalent to the illuminated surface of the picture/object plane, both PITCHED SUPERFICIALLY AT THE SURFACE OF THINGS as an absolute (abstract/virtual) flatness – an incorporeal realm where the forms, passions, shapes and rhythms of this flatness might slip and explode as ideas, shapes, states of affairs, bodies and forces in the real world, FROM WHICH THEY ARE ANYWAY NOT SEPARATED.

OCEAN POSE exists in a variety of actualisations - the exhibition at Matt’s Gallery, a website which will be online during the exhibition and a publication/artwork, the 13th in the second series of Matt’s Gallery booklets, available free of charge at the exhibition.

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Biography
Born London 1963 Studied 1998-1999 MA History of Art, Goldsmith's College of Art, London; 1983-1986 BA Fine Art: Painting, Central St Martins School of Art, London; Founder member of the art group BANK (1990-2000) including over fifty exhibitions and events and a range of artworks and publications Forthcoming 2007 Frozen Tears III,launches in London and New York Selected Solo Exhibitions 2005 Geniess Norwich Gallery, Norwich; The Visible and the Expressible Transmission Gallery, Glasgow Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Right-on/write-off Chapman Fine Arts, London; Painters without paintings and paintings without painters Orchard Gallery, New York 2005 Post no Bills, White Columns, New York 2004 The thinking, In collaboration with Mark Beasley and Damon Packard (part of the Romantic detachment exhibition), curated by Grizedale Arts, PS1/MOMA, New York, USA; AXXPRESSSUNIZM (co-curator with Mark Beasley and exhibitor), Vilma Gold Gallery, London and Aliceday Gallery, Brussels 2001 Becks Futures 2 - in collaboration with Fabienne Audéoud, including ICA, London, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Sotheby’s, New York Selected Collaborations & Performances (with Fabienne Audeoud) 2005 Voicing the vagina (flyposted posters), commissioned by Bookworks, at Commercial Tavern, London, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham and International 3, Manchester; Pourquoi les femmes aiment-elles l’enfer? Confort Moderne, Poitiers, France 2002 Twenty Women Play The Drums Topless, South London Gallery, London 2001 John Russell Kills Fabienne Audeoud in the style of William Burroughs, Trade Apartment, London Recent Selected Group Shows exhibiting BANK artworks & publications 2006 Bring the war home, Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York and QED Gallery, Los Angeles 2003 Still life, British Council touring show including Museo de Belas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela and MAC Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 2002 To whom it may concern, CCAC, Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco 2001 Century City, Tate Modern, London 2000 Protest and Survive, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London

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