THOMAS WILLIAMS fine art ltd presents:

Lars Elling

15 March – 29 April 2011

Thomas Williams will open their  new Bond Street gallery on 15 March 2011 with an exhibition of the critically acclaimed artist, Lars Elling, his first show in a gallery in the UK. In Elling’s visually arresting paintings, reality is blurred into dreamscape through a layered narrative. Norwegian born Elling leads the way in the current renaissance of figurative art and his large scale paintings – such as Mother’s Day and Initiation (shown above) – make for one of the most exciting shows of Spring 2011.

Elling’s paintings are filled with melodramatic motifs that evoke childhood, nostalgia, cruelty and anonymity. These images derive from old magazine photographs, family snapshots or even reproductions of Old Masters and brilliantly explore the dramatic potential inherent in combining such familiar but disparate imagery.

Elling is a master technician who makes his own paints by blending egg tempera with pure pigment and linseed oil, creating a viscosity of paint and quality of surface unique to him. The application, transparency and texture of the picture surface are of critical importance. His methodology involves rotating the canvas as he paints the various passages, thereby denying the conventional north/south, east/west axes that typically form the basis for figurative paintings and creating a spatial disorientation that verges on the abstract. His work has been compared to Francis Bacon and Paula Rego.

The paintings will be on sale from £5,000 to £25,000. Fans of Elling’s work include Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst and US art critic David Shapiro. His most recent shows have been in New York and Oslo.

New gallery

Lars Elling’s show marks the re-launch of Thomas Williams, which has been greatly expanded and re-modelled. The gallery is renowned for showing the work  of contemporary representational artists and has held solo exhibitions for Alessandro Raho, Lucy Cavendish, Barry Fantoni, Annie Morris and Paul Simonon. Particular emphasis is given to showing directly commissioned work, rather than relying on the secondary market.

ENDS

For further press information please contact Rebecca Ward on 020 7613 3306 or email press@rebeccaward.co.uk.

Thomas Williams Fine Art, 22 Old Bond Street, London W1S 4PY

by Ilaria Rebecchi