George Little seems to have discovered the fruitful metaphorical potential - and lots of other necessary ingredients like color schemes, motives and energy - in the sordid after-modernist decay of restaurant interiors and the iconography related to it. But he does much more; he aims at creating new narrative approaches in painting. He does so, upto now, by organizing a complex yet spontaneous interaction to take place - on the painting and while painting - between the culture of the studio (or perhaps the modernist idea of that studio) and that of the kitchen. Little has observed that these two environments are similar when it comes to strategies of production and presentation. But as sophisticated as this approach may seem, when looking at his paintings one experiences pure poetical energy.

In the ‘Future Greats’ section of Art Review’s March 2013 issue, Rosalind Nashashibi proposes a way of looking at George Little’s paintings that fits into this introduction to the work of this fascinating artist: “George Little’s paintings are figurative, abstract and patterned with crowded facades. They are both decorative and modernist, perhaps in the shadow of Matisse (...). They more usually feature the trappings and detritus from restaurants; for instance, a repeated white folded line, like the bobbing crest of a wave, becomes a parade of napkins.

(...) Sometimes the paintings look as if they have rectangles of glass placed over them. This device seems to resurface areas of the canvas, altering the focus, and suggesting the frosted glass of the elite restaurant or gallery frontage. Through these painted panes you can make out forms that could be root vegetables or ornate cushions, I can’t quite tell; and it’s this border zone that makes the paintings so unexpected and troubling.”

George Tormod Little was born in Hammersmith, London, UK, in 1988. He lives and works in London. His recent solo exhibitions include shows at CO2 Gallery in Rome, Italy; Mother Space, Shoreditch, London, UK; Elephant and Castle - Winter projects, London, UK and Ana Cristea Gallery, New York, USA. His works were shown in groups shows at the Lion and Lamb Gallery, Shoreditch, London, UK; Fell Space, London, UK; the Saatchi gallery, London, UK.

His work is in the collection of the Saatchi Gallery, London.



---



Wagon/Damask

A statement about the exhibition by George Little

Taken from the High Germanic of the word ‘Vogue’, ‘Wagon’, meant ‘to balance oneself’ although it also meant ‘to fluctuate and ‘to float’. ‘Damask’, a rich heavy two sided, reversible fabric, seems in making with Vogue yet not with Wagon. Yet its physicality has this relation with surface and the underside, wavering.

The show comprises mainly of two new bodies of work, new large paintings and a grouping of smaller works that sit within the framing of an installation.

These present a side or face to an ongoing loose metaphorical system, one that is inherent within the artist’s practice and informs theoretical and aesthetic decisions. This is the relation between kitchen and front of house with that of the artist studio and gallery. This outlining formula, allows for investigation into painterly notions as well as the presentational values associated.

The paintings have a collective notion of marks and references that seem to show an internalized eponymic set of values. The works are intrinsically self-referential at times and retain motifs and gestures within the artist’s cyclical canon. Although external references stem from the positions and history of modernism and the dining space (from Adolf Loos’ Museum Café, Marinetti’s The Holy Palate and a fictional Matisse inspired eatery, Henri’s). Internally they are referencing the etiquette of high and low values within the service industry. The fold of a table linen, the fading wallpaper or the distained stature of plastic checkered tablecloth. As well, it courses questioningly into the etiquette of a painter’s language and the contemporaneous position of the modernist aesthetic.

The smaller works are less pictorially clear, although some show remnants of such things. Painted directly onto Ivy patterna table linen, this base motif has been masked/destroyed to varying degrees by the painter’s activity. The works seems to have regurgitated onto each other at times or picked up grease marks from the kitchen floor. These works appear to be residue or discarding’s from the larger paintings or from elsewhere, becoming procedurally shelved. Edging surrounds them, engraved with an abstracted form of the Damask Ivy pattern, reinstating them back to a more current set of aesthetic values. Circumambulating these paintings is a series of relief-based works that create installation synapses. The Cornucopia Series act within the language of art object, sculpture, and decoration based on the form of a jelly mold and cast from studio materials and detritus, they seem murkier through the addition of Aspic colouring, a natural food dye.