“Sienese painters seem to have imagined their city as an object one might hold in one’s hand…”
Timothy Hyman
The bricks that build the houses is the second solo exhibition by London-based artist Megan Rea.
Presenting a new body of work Rea reimagines architecture depicted in Italian frescoes as contemporary structures. Inspired by the shallow perspective of medieval Sienese and Florentine works, building facades are stripped of their adornments and abstracted, angled to bring them to life in the gallery space. Repetitive crenellated motifs stack like bricks predicting the presence of concrete highrises. Flat pack designs suggest the simplified assembly and modernisation of traditional Italian architecture. The paintings on paper appear to be fragments of frescoes, the dry licks of paint bold and bright as if perfectly preserved through the centuries.
Megan Rea graduated from Edinburgh College of Art (2016). Recent exhibitions include Arquitectura and Light, Make Space Studios- London (2019), The Summer Show, House of St Barnabas – London (2019), The Spring Auction, Menier Gallery – London (2019), HIX Award, HIX Gallery – London (2018), An Altered State (solo exhibition), The Biscuit Factory – Newcastle (2018)
If you would like to attend the Private View on 13th October, please book a timeslot on Eventbrite.
The twenty five successful artists from the Open Call will each host a week-long exhibition in the Back Room.