scream 34 Bruton Street London W1J 6QX www.screamlondon.com

Rupert ShriveThe Uncertainty Principle

Rupert ShriveThe Uncertainty Principle

scream34 Bruton Street, London, W1J 6QX

Tel: +44 (0)20 7493 7388 Fax: +44 (0)20 7409 2825www.screamlondon.com

3 - 26 May 2007

Screwed up headsI met Rupert Shrive in Soho some years ago. That strange islandof London was nominally given to recreation, but it saw a nightlycomi-tragedy of destruction, mostly self-destruction. The guttersof Soho by new daylight underwent a remake. Just as at the day’send the cabbage leaves and spoiled fruit of Berwick Market weretumbled into heaps and thrown into carts, as soon as the stallswere dismantled, so, as the sun rose, the gutters’ nightsoil ofcrumpled newspapers, crushed cardboard cups, cigarette packets,vomit, odd shoes, spilled takeaways, stained pieces of clothing,dead birds, the occasional rifled handbag, down-and-outs’blankets, dog turds, condoms, plane-tree leaves – the whole dirtyrandom scattering – disappeared street by street, leaving nothingbut the rubbed-clean granite of the kerbstone, and the dampasphalt of the road smoothed at the edge by the sweeper’s broominto a striated bed of thin mud and sharp quartz gravel reflectingthe low sun. The regulars of the Coach and Horses or the ColonyRoom Club never looked so fresh in the light.

Rupert Shrive studied at St Martin’s School of Art, round onecorner from Old Compton Street, the constricted artery of Soho’shuman traffic. He painted for several years high up above theCoach and Horses, on a corner commanding a pigeon’s-eye viewof the flow of quotidian street jetsam. Screwed-up Headsrepresent a development of his earlier essays in arrangement,destruction, derangement and anagrammaticisation.

A screwed-up Mondrian is a contradiction in terms, for thehuman observer reconstructs internally the regularity he knowswas once there. A screwed-up face is more troubling. It is harderto find the soft borders between the fine bona roba and thewithered whore. The death’s head’s teeth are smashed as thesurface of his image is crushed. The spines of Christ’s crown dripcreases as well as lines of blood. Veronica’s kerchief that wasCover:

Four Eyes, 2007Acrylic on brown paper, 130 x 220 cm

Lola, 2007Acrylic on brown paper, 200 x 220 cm

crumpled and soiled becomes a true icon of one who makes allthings new.

Benvenuto Cellini saw a salamander alive in the fire. Ours is not awell-knit generation, strong enough to witness the world’sstrangeness. The Uncertainty Principle rules our vision: if we feela nostalgic yearning for the unknown, we do not know where tofind it. If we seem to catch a glimpse of something strangelyfamiliar in an instant, it has disappeared when we look again. Wedo not stare at the fire and see salamanders, or even the faces ourgrandparents saw. We do not watch the fire at all, nor do we seethe stars by night. Instead we fall hypnotised into the rapid eye-movement dreams of television. Wrapped in sealed aeroplanes, wekeep our distance from the seas, seldom venturing among theturmoil of the waves. Canned inside cars we stay away from thebuffeted branches of the storm-thrashed wood. A vision of thegutter is the furthest we can reach. All human life is there till it beremade.

Christopher HowseSt George’s Day, 2007

Twins (left), 2007Acrylic on brown paper, 180 x 225 cm

Twins (right), 2007Acrylic on brown paper, 140 x 200 cm

Four Eyes, 2007Acrylic on brown paper, 130 x 220 cm

Large Mondrian, 2007Acrylic on brown paper, 190 x 155 cm

Mao (after Warhol), 2007Acrylic on brown paper, 140 x 125 cm

White U.S. Flag (after John’s), 2007Acrylic on brown paper, 190 x 170 cm

Chinese Girl, 2007Acrylic on brown paper, 95 x 88 cm

Restoration Portrait, 2007Acrylic on brown paper, 94 x 78 cm

Portrait (after Hals), 2007Acrylic on brown paper, 145 x 100 cm

Self-Portrait, 2007Acrylic on brown paper, 138 x 71 cm

Veronica, 2007Acrylic on brown paper, 123 x 94 cm

Calavera, 2006Acrylic on brown paper, 123 x 94 cm

Congo, 2007Acrylic on brown paper, 90 x 60 cm

Venice, 2007Acrylic on brown paper, 75 x 105 cm

Shut Up, 2007Acrylic on brown paper, 110 x 92 cm

The Uncertainty Principle, (after Stubbs) 2006Rearranged gouache on paper, 225 x 194 cm

Noli me tangere, 2007Rearranged gouache on paper, 110 x 130 cm

Confinement of Quarks, 2006Rearranged gouache on paper, 87 x 137 cm

Mary Mary, 2007Lightbox, edition of 25, 79 x 65 cm

Journeyman, 2007Lightbox, edition of 25, 64 x 53 cm

Watchman, 2007Lightbox, edition of 25, 64 x 53 cm

Tiffany, 2007Lightbox, edition of 25, 64 x 53 cm

Sixpence, 2007Lightbox, edition of 25, 64 x 53 cm

1965 born in Norfolk.Lives in London and Paris.

March to April 2007, One man exhibition, Glauco Cavaciuti, Milan.Nov 2006 to Jan 2007, One man exhibition, Rita Castellote, Madrid.Feb 2007 Art Madrid with Rita Castellote, Madrid.Oct 2006 Group exhibition, Scream, London.Feb 2006 Art Madrid with Nikki Marquardt, Paris and Val i 30, Valencia.July -August 2005 Coach and Horses painting exhibited in situ. (Covered by the Times and the Standard).2000-2005 Artist in residence, the Coach and Horses, Soho, London.18th feb 2004 The Times, article identifying El Greco himself as the famous ‘man with hand on his chest’in the Prado, Madrid.March 2003 Garrick Milne prize, portrait of the actor Peter Sallis, bought by the Garrick club.2002 National portrait gallery, BP award, portrait of the painter Patrick Procktor.June-July 2002 Zwemmers, London, one man exhibition. (Covered in the Times by R.Campbell Johnson).2001 Slade, life drawing masterclasses.1995 ARCO Madrid, Val i 30.1989-1997 Lived in Valencia and exhibited widely throughout Spain, represented by Val i 30.July 1989 The Economist, cover, ‘The trouble with revolution’.1984-1987 St. Martins school of art, London, BA (hons) degree in fine art.1983-1984 Norwich school of art.

Photography: Alberto RicciCurated by Serena MortonCatalogue design and production: Footprint Innovation Ltd - www.fpiltd.com