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Jeffrey Dennis + Jamie Shovlin: Short Stories, Unfinished Visions

16th September - 7th October 2023

Exhibition information: Jeffrey Dennis Jamie Shovlin Short Stories, Unfinished Visions | Jamie Shovlin, Upper Gallery Floor Plan | Jeffrey Dennis, Lower Gallery Floor Plan | Jeffrey Dennis + Jamie Shovlin – Exhibition Booklet 2023

Two parallel shows by artists whose work approaches the complex task of making art and chasing meaning from different directions.

The paintings of Jeffrey Dennis are made up of small marks that spread over large canvases. Uneven layers of texture and colour divulge disconnected scenes of human activity; like flashes of memory they start stories from diverse time zones that are never completed.

Jamie Shovlin is not restricted by media: an idea will select its own way of working – he has used drawing, film, objects, music, performance in previous projects. Like Dennis, Shovlin is interested in how we process information and often fail to separate truth from fiction when outward appearances lead us astray. At that point, new stories and theories arise to help us make sense of our world.

For both artists, these shows represent their debuts in Cornwall, which they have prepared for by first exhibiting in museums and galleries around the world.

The exhibitions run 16th September – 7th October 2023 and will be launched with an opening event on Friday 15th September, 6-8pm. Jeffrey Dennis will exhibit on the lower floor or the Gallery, while Jamie Shovlin will show on the upper floor.

Tremenheere Gallery is open Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 4pm, closed Sundays and Mondays, FREE entry.

Feature image: Jeffrey Dennis, Traces of Occupation (detail), 2018, oil on linen, 127 x 153 cm. (c) The artist.

More about the artists:

Jeffrey Dennis has exhibited in solo shows since 1979 in the UK, USA and Italy, at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, the Orchard Gallery, Belfast, Salvatore Ala Gallery, New York and Milan, Art Space Gallery, London, and most recently showed at the Keats-Shelley House in Rome. In 2015 a major retrospective took place at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions, most notably at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt-am-Main, and at Tate and the Royal Academy of Arts, London. The Arts Council, British Council, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, Italian Government Art Collection, Keats-Shelley House, Rome, Leeds Art Gallery, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Tate, London, and private collections worldwide own his work. Jeffrey Dennis was born in Colchester in 1958 and lives and works in London.

Jamie Shovlin’s first solo exhibition at Riflemaker, London, in 2003, was purchased by Charles Saatchi. For the next decade, his projects were presented at venues in the UK, Europe and the US, including Tate Britain, Museum of Contemporary Art (MACRO), Rome, Istanbul Biennial, Leicester and Southampton city art galleries, Cornerhouse, Manchester, Haunch of Venison, London and Zurich, and Freight & Volume, New York. He was runner-up for the prestigious Beck’s Futures prize in 2006. He typically fabricates items purporting to be the work of other hands. He invented the memorabilia created by the fans of 1970s German noise-rock band, Lustfaust. Neither the fans nor the band ever existed although Shovlin did perform as Lustfaust, or its tribute act, in live venues in the UK and Europe. This exhibition is his first solo show for several years. Jamie Shovlin was born in Leicester in 1978 and lives and works in London.

Works in the exhibitions are for sale.

The Dowsers

The Procession Continued Down to the Shore

Traces of Occupation

Cover your Tracks

The Girl who Came Back

The Wayside Signs III

The Wayside Signs II

The Wayside Signs

Play the Bones

Stones by the Way

Mysterious Priest

Leonard Jake/The Sad Crow (036)

Oscar’s Kiss

Leonard Jake/The Sad Crow (064)

Leonard Jake/The Sad Crow (054)

Leonard Jake/The Sad Crow (017)

Leonard Jake/The Sad Crow (076)

Gathering Lights

Leonard Jake/The Sad Crow (018)

Leonard Jake/The Sad Crow (074)

Leonard Jake/The Sad Crow (065)

Leonard Jake/The Sad Crow (043)

Leonard Jake/The Sad Crow (066)

Leonard Jake/The Sad Crow (059)

Leonard Jake/The Sad Crow (058)