The exhibition Mesolithic Pop brings together three UK based artists who all share an interest in the primal act of art making and the basic nature of creativity.

20th January-19th February

The idea of “pre language” and man’s desire to communicate with whatever material is at hand is paramount to these artists’ practice. Physical contact with the environment and a quest for understanding through making objects is what drives the works in this exhibition to be made. These artists revel in traditional production methods, shunning the digital world. Joel Gray’s work concentrates on stone carving with all its historic implications. He carves everyday consumerist products such as iPhones and luxury sun glasses into stone forms of varying scale. The materials used are a reaction to the mass produced, disposable nature of so many of the objects that surround us. Francis Thorburn’s practice similarly investigates D.I.Y production. Under the title of Minister of Alternative Transport has been developing a series of processional performances, which use large scale sculptural devices (vehicles) to head the procession. For Mesolithic Pop he will show for the first time a new series of photographs and films that document his recent performances. Cedar Lewisohn’s work transforms drawings into woodcarvings and large scale hand pressed prints. Many of his images have tribal and primitive associations. The images he depicts range from Zulu’s and aliens to fetish clubs and pure abstraction.

Mesolithic Pop is the first in a series of exhibitions that the artists will stage in 2012 under title The New Primitives. The exhibition will feature a newly commissioned text by author and psychoanalyst Anouchka Grose on the subject of masculinity. The project is kindly supported by The Workspace Group.