Blue Shop Gallery presents
Josh Raz
'Shaken Ground’
2nd - 19th November 2023
Extended to: 1st, 2nd, 8th, 9th December 2023 11-6pm
PV Drinks Wednesday 1st November 6-9pm
72 Brixton Road, Oval SW9 6BH
ARTIST TALK | Saturday 11th November 12-1pm
Josh Raz in conversation with Ocki, Blue Shop Gallery Director
RSVP essential hello@blueshopcottage.com
Gallery opening hours:
Wednesday - Sunday | 11am - 6pm
Josh Raz (b.1993, UK) Lives and works in London, UK
Josh Raz graduated from Newcastle University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art and currently resides in London. Since winning the Hix Award in 2016, Raz has produced Four solo shows, ‘The Atrophy Experience’, Hix Gallery, London (2017), ‘Hubris and a Whimper’, Abject Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne (2018), ‘Joyride’, Bermondsey Project Space (2021) and ‘Trails Through a Reverie’, Ronchini Gallery (2022). He has been featured in GQ magazine (May 2017) and more recently in Artmaze Magazine (November 2021). Raz also completed a residency in Al Cuz Cuz, situated in the mountains of Malaga, Spain and was featured in Ronchini Gallery’s booth at Dallas Art Fair (2023). He has participated in a number of group shows, including ‘Love is the Devil’, held at Marlborough Gallery (2022), ‘Uncovers’ (2019), held at Christie’s and Unit London and more recently, ‘A New Sensation’, held at Galerie Marguo, Paris.
In ‘Shaken Ground’, the paintings consider how landscapes are internalised and adjusted in their recollection. They hint at an inborn pliancy in both the land and the hazy figures cradled by it. When channelled through such mutable conduits, what is real and what is unreal in the landscapes are made equal in their retelling. The paintings acknowledge this by presenting figures as dissoluble in their surroundings, some literally treading water but all afloat on a mire of hearsay.
Unbounded landscapes leave the wayfarers that cross them uncertain in how to respond. One lights a cigarette and exhales a land of momentary certainty, veiling the disquiet of the former space. Another fills their palms with water, preparing to drink as those might from the river Lethe and to forget days already told. Others maraud around flames, beneath starlight and its calls from the far-flung past.
While each painting might suggest a different outlook, they collectively depict the moments in which landscapes are altered as they become imbued with meaning, and the ways that this in turn further alters those that sit within them.
2023 Shaken Ground, Blue Shop Gallery, London, UK (solo)
2023 Bye Bye Cowboy, Arusha Gallery, London, UK (group)
2023 A New Sensation, Galerie Marguo, Paris, France (group)
2022 Trails Through a Reverie, Ronchini, London (solo)
2022 Half Tranced, Painters Painting Paintings, Online (solo)
2022 Love is the Devil, Marlborough Gallery, London (group)
2021 Joyride, Bermondsey Project Space, London (solo)
2019 Uncovers’, Christie’s and Unit London (group)
2018 Hubris and a Whimper, Abject Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne (solo)
2017 The Atrophy Experience’, Hix Gallery, London (solo)
“‘Shaken Ground’ explores the relationship between landscape, memory and imagination. The works in this collection unfold like dreamscapes, encouraging the audience to linger. The landscapes are presented out of context, leaving room for the subconscious mind to wander, blurring the boundary between the real and the imagined. Despite their static form, the works in ‘Shaken Ground’ are ever-changing, depicting fire, light, wood and water through organic forms and silhouettes. The audience is a silent spectator, witnessing fleeting moments of in-between. Dotted with hazy figures, these natural landscapes take on new meaning as memories in our own lives, both on and near the water’s edge’ ”
‘Shifting Axis’, Josh Raz, Oil on canvas, 200 x 165cm, 2023
'Treading Water', Josh Raz, oil on canvas, 85 x 145cm, 2023
‘Untell’, Josh Raz, Oil on canvas, 115 x 200cm, 2023