Spike Island to reopen with major exhibition
Posted on: 25 Aug 2020The new exhibition showcases the work of Grenadian-British artist Denzil Forrester.
Spike Island is to reopen in October 2020 with a major solo exhibition by Grenada-born, British artist Denzil Forrester.
Itchin & Scratchin brings together a selection of Forrester’s paintings and recent drawings.
Spanning more than 40 years, Forrester’s work has explored ways of seeing sound, capturing the energy of the nightclub.
The work promises to pulsate "with music and motion", depicting scenes "that are by turns intimate and ecstatic; singular records of Afro-Caribbean experience in Britain."
The exhibition opens Saturday 17 October 2020 with free entry.
Watch: Denzil Forrester discusses Itchin & Scratchin
As an art student in the late 1970s, Forrester was a regular at the dub-reggae clubs of East London.
There he began to make drawings of MCs and dancers, sound systems and strobes. On dark dancefloors, he would sketch quickly, for the time it took the DJ to play a single track.
Later transformed into large-scale paintings, these nocturnal works capture rhythm, ambience and movement.
“When you’re an artist in a public arena, you have to be dynamic,” Forrester said in an interview with frieze.
“I wasn’t interested in just drawing an individual standing in front of me; I was interested in capturing the energy of the whole room.”
Denzil Forrester: 'Itchin & Scratchin' now open at @Nottm_Contemp ???? Pulsing with music and movement, these nocturnal scenes are by turns intimate and ecstatic, singular records of the Afro-Caribbean experience in Britainhttps://t.co/yAvVdoIkjS
— Spike Island (@_SpikeIsland) February 27, 2020
In partnership with @_SpikeIsland pic.twitter.com/5CceTWflJh
In 2019, Forrester visited Jamaica for the first time, making a new body of work shaped by Kingston’s sound systems and open-air parties. This work will also feature in the exhibition.
For now, the Spike Island reception and café have reopened with the temporarily reduced hours of Monday to Friday, 10:00 to 14:00, for takeaway only.
Keep up to date via the Spike Island website: www.spikeisland.org.uk.
Main image: Spike Island
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