Tim Garwood: Super Deluxe Violet Sky

Denny Gallery is delighted to announce Tim Garwood’s solo exhibition Super Deluxe Violet Sky opening at Denny Gallery, Hong Kong from March 18 to April 29, 2023. This will be Garwood’s first exhibition both in Hong Kong and with Denny Gallery.

Tim Garwood has built a reputation as a vivacious, spontaneous and intuitive artist, however this belies the methodology and deeply involved practice which he has honed for nearly a decade. Garwood creates inverse paintings on glass using layered media such as oil paint, ink and spray paint as well as highly textured abstract works on canvas. They form two sides of a practice built on paintings which are raucous explosions of color, texture, marks and gesture. Garwood’s paintings push beyond the normal boundaries of surface and pictorial dimension, particularly in this current body of work which engulfs the frames of each piece into the painting themselves through the use of built-up glitter, gestural painted patterns and collage. Since 2022, Garwood has incorporated dynamic neon lighting placed across some works which give added dimension as a form of linear mark making – the light casting an eerie glow back into the works which are inverse paintings on glass and adding further tactile depth and texture onto the canvas pieces.

The title of the exhibition alludes to the starry nostalgia that is embedded in Garwood’s work and practice. As a child of the 1980s, he has a wistful respect for everyday pop culture as well as a rock and roll rebellion towards complicating the work by overlaying too much meaning. This applies to threads of themes that can be traced in the work such as the inclusion of British stamps heralding from that decade which formed part of a childhood collection as well as the visual material related to gardens, flowers and nature. Both are simultaneously present yet not intended to be specific clues or signifiers with the work. It is rather the layers of marks, color and media that guide the viewer into finding their own relationship with the paintings. Small details that one comes across move the work from the gesture of the artist through to a more personal connection with the viewer. The titles behave in the same way: Sula Basanna, Stomper, Drummer all allude to a musical influence on the works, implying a hedonistic disco edge, almost allowing the audience to hear the music, and yet with the calmer more scenic mindset of Pond, Par Terre and Playful Paradise we are moved into a different mode of thought where the works sit firmly embedded in nature. With this difference we can consider the fact that perhaps there is no thematic connection; that we are imposing meaning based on how we are moved by what we see. What we do see is the magpie-like accumulation of color, material and paint transformed into an energetic offering that is up to us as the viewer to build on with our own thoughts and connections.