Revelations: The Poison of Free Thought Part I

This took the form of two presentations, firstly a solo-booth at Start Art Fair, London, followed by an expanded mini-survey at Syson Gallery, Nottingham.

The key part of the Start installation were the robed figures. One of several elements incorporated in to the painting on 'Part II', they are reminiscent of the KKK/Semana Santa robes, also containing motorcycle club-style patches on the cape. The patches allude to four chapters of a LEVITTOWN club - New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico. This is reference to four suburban developments in America from the 50s through to the 70s, all named Levittown after the developers, the Levitt Brothers. In architectural history these developments are sometimes cited as the birth of American suburbia – rows of same architectural template houses in grid like street structures. They were specifically built to provide cheap, quality, housing for returning veterans from WWII. However, the history of the towns is somewhat blighted by the fact that written in to the contracts of the houses was that they were available to whites only. So strict was this ruling that it meant that, for example, not even people of Jewish faith could purchase them, technically excluding the Levitts themselves from their own developments.

At Syson Gallery, across two floors, was a mini-survey (14 Oct - 11 Dec, 2016). This functioned in some way as a physical illustration of the book 'Revelations' produced alongside the show, which covers and contextualises nearly twenty years of practice.