Artist: Merlin James

Maureen Paley presents a solo exhibition by Merlin James, his first at the gallery and Studio M.

His practice, which includes curating and art-critical writing as well as painting, has developed a deepening aesthetic understanding over some four decades. This show will combine recently finished paintings with ones selected from his studio inventory in Glasgow, the earliest dating to 1982.

’I am actually working with temporality. I’m using the way work gets old, or changes over time, physically and in terms of its readings. I’m interested in how paintings time travel.’ (1)

The exhibition will include paintings of the Arnold Circus bandstand, an east London landmark visible from the Studio M window. He first painted and drew the bandstand in the mid 1980s when he had a studio nearby on Redchurch Street, and he has recently returned to the motif. It is one of a range of such architectural structures — including bridges, piers, toll booths, windmills — which have recurred throughout his work:

‘I’m painting about grouping and division… about boundaries and enclosures, boxes and compartments.’ (2)

Merlin James (b. 1960, Cardiff, Wales) is a painter living and working in Glasgow, Scotland. Selected solo exhibitions include: Some Steps, Kunstsaele, Berlin, Germany (2023); Long Game, CCA, Glasgow, UK (2016); Signal Box, Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (2013); Parasol Unit, London, UK (2013); Wales Pavilion, 52nd International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (2007); Easel Paintings, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, UK (2004); Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK (1996).

Selected group exhibitions include: Healing, Sikkema Jenkins & Co, New York, (2024); Mixing It Up, Hayward Gallery, London, UK (2021); Merlin James / David Schutter; After Poussin / After Ruisdael, A-M-G5, Glasgow, UK (2019); Slow Painting, Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds, UK (2019); La Vita Materiale, The Goma, Madrid, Spain (2017); Towards Night, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, UK (2016); SS Blue Jacket, KARST, Plymouth, UK (2013); Things We Lost in the Fire, Leicester City Art Gallery, UK (2007); The Edge of the Real, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2004); Yes! I am a long way from home, Huddersfield Art Gallery, Huddersfield, UK (2003); East End Academy, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (1996).

His work is included in collections of the Arts Council England, UK; Brooklyn Museum, USA; Dallas Museum of Art, USA; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, France; National Museum of Wales, UK; HUA Art Museum, Shenzhen, China; San Antonio Art Museum, USA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA; Tate, London, UK.

1&2 Merlin James: Signal Box, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2013