12 London based artists are dealing with their personal experience of pain whether individual, social, psychological, purely physical or collective: death, violence, war, questioning of faith, depression, but also sado-masochism as a pleasure conductor, through what is considered to be one of the most pleasurable things in life: Music.
The participating artists have been asked to choose a track or a piece of music that is linked with their experience of suffering and using it as a starting and inspirational point for their work.
Press Release
Dolore is the brainchild of Italian artist, Klarita Pandolfi. With help from curator Harry Pye, Pandolfi has spent the last twelve months carefully selecting both established and up and coming artists who have made work about different aspects of pain. The exhibition features heartfelt emotional paintings from Clare Chapman, exquisite and yet uniquely disturbing etchings from Anj Smith, romantic and highly stylised bright coloured paintings from Thion. Exceptionally beautiful drawings from Catherine Story, weird and wonderful sculptures from Phillip Wilson-Perkins, highly elaborate and amazingly skilled paintings of Martin Dukes and the warm and witty work of Stephanie Moran.Klarita Pandolfi’s contribution is Blood, Sperm and Tears a black and white photo piece concerned with Sadomasochism which proudly wears the influence of Byzantine mosaics on it’s sleeve.
John Lennon once said that when he wrote his song “Mother (Don’t Go,
Daddy Come Home”) he wasn’t singing about the hurt he felt towards his own mother and father but that like Larkin in "This Be The Verse" – he was talking about 99% of parents alive of half dead. Liz Neal’s contribution to the show is a damaged and battered painting of someone she jokingly claims not to have thought about since she was in teenager in therapy. Whereas
Whistler painted his mother sitting peacefully, Neal’s mum is represented by a can of cheap but strong white cider which she’s then scribbled over. This
cathartic art-piece has Neal musing on such questions as whether or not her mother ever had an orgasm.Tennessee Williams often claimed he never trusted anyone as he felt it was his only protection against being betrayed. Recent Chelsea graduate Marcus Cope makes beautiful large scale paintings that always feature a very skillful use of glitter. Yet like Williams, Cope has a heart that has been hurt. The artist jokes that the work he’s donated to Dolore is about the pain of feeling pain but there’s many a true word spoken in jest.For many the highlight of this show may well be the contribution of Mat Humphrey. The Sartorial Contemporary Art Gallery is thrilled to give a wider public audience it’s first taste of Humphrey’s incredible suicide series. Humphrey’s project features 36 portraits of leading writers, musicians and artists who took their own life made from the type of cardboard that gets thrown away everyday. Interested in the process of subtraction rather than addition and the transience of cardboard as a material, Humphrey’s work is a tribute to the self-destructiveness often associated with creative genius. The work potentially throws light into the flaw in the notion that fame and success are answers to the search for happiness.As a companion piece Harry Pye has made a large scale painting entitled, Boys Will Be Boys which is a meditation on problems of male ego and male pride. It is almost exactly ten years since both Harry Pye and Mat Humphrey both graduated from Winchester School of Art they have since worked together on many, many shows and projects. Most of the text in Pye’s painting is lifted from Alan Bennett’s screenplay of the 90’s film, “Prick Up Your Ears” which looked at the troubled relationship between Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell. The words, “You do everything better than me!” are what Alan Bennett guessed Halliwell shouted as he murdered Orton in a jealous rage. In Boys Will Be Boys Pye claims the words as his own and turns them into a tribute to his friend and collaborator.Klarita Pandolfi has asked each artist in the show to choose a piece of music that they feel represents them. The chosen songs will be played at the entrance of the gallery as a reminder of their personal experience and as a soundtrack to accompany this theatre of suffering.
