Stephen Kent

We Must Dance Sing And Drum Ourselves Out Of The Circumstances Into Which We Have Fallen

Nov 23 – Dec 21, 2018

In the foreground of his pixelated wall reliefs one finds painstakingly arranged still lifes of overflowing fruit baskets as the opened wine is still being rendered bit by bit. In the background, quick photos generated with a smartphone embrace superimposed scenes that seem hyperreal and more than reality. The appropriated still lives reproduced into mosaic are interwoven with the carefree snapshots of their surrounding origins. Kent reinserts the ubiquitous still life painting back into the banal living room, the next door shisha bar, or the over lit

department store.

Beanbag chairs benevolently invite a full bodied experience. With a heavy ceramic orb invoking a crystal ball or the nucleus of being, the viewer sinks into a synchronic flow of motives found throughout the exhibition.

The large scale canvases are pasted with found bedsheets, with everyday patters and lush color schemes which invoke painterly brushstrokes and decorative gestures. The spontaneous compositions are created with utmost intent, deliberately distilling expressive anecdotes from the aesthetic trash of the suburban idyll.

Kent's cast paintings deal with the disguised gesture as a means of image production and dissolution. Slippery marks made with the palette knife or brush are reproduced throughout each room, losing their specificity through convoluted process and provoking overpainting. Form and content collapse and dissolve each other as Kent blurs the line between the object and the image, wether it be trivial or sacred.

Stephen Kent explores cultural codes that can be found embedded in everyday objects and scenarios. With a medium-reflexive approach, he uses a process-oriented language to humorously investigate the stuff our world is made of. It remains a staged clash of ancient and digital pixels, an ironic montage of high and mass culture with an inquisitive wink.

Philipp Haverkampf is pleased to present, Stephen Kent's first solo exhibtion with the gallery. Kent was born 1985 in Pennsylvania, USA and currently lives and works in Berlin.