Andrew Kerr

Matthew Brown is pleased to present a new body of paintings by Andrew Kerr and the artist’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles. 

The sixteen paintings that make up this show are varied: there are those that appear to capture pure intuitions and those that are striving to describe something—a scene, a place, objects—from the mind’s eye. 

The exhibition’s title Bridge for July, might be indicative—an unfamiliar arrangement that has some sense nonetheless. Across the works, recurring motifs of rings, circles, and pointing arrowheads are tangible prompts and channel pictorial flow. The paintings also share a consistency of handling. Kerr’s surfaces invite moments of graphic clarity amongst fuzzy mid-tone color spreads; their delicate lines bring definition to looser, speculative modelling held in overlaid washes. Pattern deviation and wide distributions of painterly episodes animate the internal compositions. There can be low-key hues and scruffy textures; a consequence of George Braque's reassurance, and a reluctance to give up on a painting. 

There are suggestions of unpeopled exterior views, for instance in Fruitpickers' Hut we see a roof, a door, perhaps a tree, all cloaked in a warm grey lavender gloaming. Their imagery is mysterious and associative. In other paintings there are hints of machinery, mechanical processes, and parts in motion. Teeth, filters, and vibrations act out these circulations within toiling systems.

And there are paintings that bear little resemblance to the material world, yet may not be entirely abstract. For Kerr there is no definitive source, the compositions are describing themselves. 

Born of a daily studio practice these works have evolved out of a dedication to the act of painting. Each piece contains imaginative fictions, aiming beyond the artist's limitations; they offer their visual attributes foremost for consideration.
 

Andrew Kerr (b. 1977 Glasgow) lives and works in Glasgow. Selected solo exhibitions include: Mist At The Pillars, The Modern Institute, Osborne Street, Glasgow (2019); Blum & Poe, New York (2018); Wyndham School of Dancing, The Modern Institute, Bricks Space (2016); Away with Nora, BQ, Berlin (2015); The gallery is beside a church, apartments and a small park with fountain, Rat Hole Gallery, Tokyo (2015); the Other Shop, The Modern Institute, Aird’s Lane, Glasgow (2014); My Ceiling Our Responsibility, Shane Campbell Gallery, Lincoln Park, Chicago (2014); Dellmess was Charged, The Modern Institute, Osborne Street Glasgow (2012); Haul in, Cousin, BQ, Berlin (2012); So Ensconced, Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2011); Deliveries: feeling one, running one, accepting one, against one, preparing one, revising one and sending one, Kunstverein Bremerhaven (2009); and Cojones Need Patience, The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2007).

Recent group exhibitions include: What You Do, I Like, Hospitalfield Arts, Arbroath (2018); I still believe in miracles, Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2016); Woodwork space, David Dale Gallery, Glasgow (part of Glasgow International 2016); I Cheer a Dead Man’s Sweetheart, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill (2014); A Picture Show, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow (2013); Beholder, Talbot Rice, Edinburgh (2011) and Fizz Up and Dissolve, The Project Room, Glasgow (2010).

Last year Andrew curated an exhibition at the Hunterian Art Gallery titled 'Years Off The Schooling: A Selection From The Hunterian'. 

A comprehensive new publication of Andrew’s exhibitions and works was published by The Modern Institute in 2020.