Double Spar, Hales and GRIMM Gallery, London, UK
October 9 - November 11, 2023


Hales and GRIMM are delighted to announce Double Spar, a dual solo exhibition by Anthony Cudahy, opening 9 October 2023. Marking the artist’s first solo project in the UK, a new body of work will be on view at both Hales Gallery’s Shoreditch and GRIMM’s Mayfair location space. The exhibitions coincide with Frieze London and follow on from Conversation, Cudahy’s solo institutional debut at Musée des Beaux-Arts Dole (FR) and precedes his first US museum solo at Ogunquit Museum of American Art, ME (US).

The show takes its title, Double Spar, from an Icelandic sunstone which causes the sightline through the crystal to appear doubled. Interpreted in medieval texts as a celestial vision, the stone speaks to an early kind of magic, both symbolic and physical. Cudahy explores this idea of doubling: subtle dual associations appear in companion paintings, as recurrent gestures and pairings of figures. Mirroring is used as a compositional and narrative device to expand the material potential outside the space of the scenes. Repetitions of the same figure at different times of day within a painting evoke astral projections, and a meta exploration of time extends across both exhibition spaces through companion paintings.

Cudahy continues to paint multiple iterations of the same people, who are sometimes ‘acting’ or sometimes ‘themselves,’ challenging the conventions and cultural understanding of portraiture. Still drawing from art history, Cudahy is now deconstructing scenes to expertly form elemental features, collaging ideas in his paintings. In Double Spar, a repeated foot without a shoe is a nod to a Breughel, a pose is borrowed from Perugino’s St Sebastian and details from a Titian are woven into the paintings. Contemporaneous artworks are referenced with a Billy Sullivan photograph and an EJ Hauser painting, displayed in domestic settings. Quoting from art history, the interpretation of subtle motifs is left open-ended.


Hales
7 Bethnal Green Road
E1 6LA, London, UK

Photography by Charlie Littlewood

Some Vision (Ian and Alex), 2023
Oil on canvas
71 5/8 x 72 in
Eroded beach, 2023
Oil on linen
72 x 72 in
Three ages, 2023
Oil on linen
72 x 72 in
Lily waiting, 2023
Oil on linen
72 x 60 1/8 in
Three enmeshed, 2023
Oil on linen
48 1/8 x 60 1/8 in
Yrs, 2023
Oil on linen
48 1/8 x 36 in
Alex, 2023
Oil on linen
24 x 20 in
Sebastian study, 2023
Oil on linen
24 x 18 in
Nightswimming, 2023
Oil on linen
20 x 16 in
Three again, 2023
Acrylic on paper
22 1/2 x 30 1/8 in
Sun in eyes, 2023
Oil on paper
16 1/8 x 12 1/4 in
Night figures, 2023
Oil on paper
16 1/8 x 12 1/4 in
Bruegel headfirst, 2023
Oil on paper
16 1/8 x 12 1/4 in
Mutated flowers, 2023
Colored pencil on paper
11 1/8 x 8 7/8 in
Moontree, 2023
Colored pencil on paper
11 3/8 x 8 7/8 in
Girl with cat ii, 2023
Colored pencil on paper
11 3/8 x 8 7/8 in
Another echoed, 2023
Colored pencil on paper
11 x 8 1/2 in
Ian on the bed, 2023
Colored pencil on paper
8 5/8 x 11 3/8 in


GRIMM
2 Bourdon Street
London, W1K 3PA
United Kingdom

Photography by JSP Art Photography and Damian Griffiths

Violent echo / rumination, 2023
Diptych - Left: Oil, acrylic, and pencil on canvas, Right: Oil on linen
48 x 84 in
Sebastian, before or after, 2023
Oil on linen
72 x 60 in
Arthur Russell on the shore, 2023
Oil on linen
72 x 60 in
Annunciation scene (with Billy Sullivan photograph), 2023
Oil on linen
20 x 16 in
Ian glance, 2023
Oil on linen
20 x 16 in
Taped annunciation, 2023
Oil on linen
14 x 11 in
Loop under red sun, 2023
Color pencil on paper
30 x 22 in
Wolfsbane stare ii, 2023
Oil on paper
16 x 12 in
Mutated narcissus flower, 2023
Oil on paper
16 x 12 in


©2024