Ken and Julian are two artists who believe abstraction is a fundamental mode of expression common to all mankind throughout history.

If abstract painting is the physical manifestation of an individual’s internal philosophical conversation made of visual ideas and visions rendered visible for the world to see, “this philosophy….. is what animates the painter – not when he expresses opinions about the world but in that instant when his vision becomes gesture when”, in Cézanne’s words, “he thinks in painting.”

This show brings together the work of these two artists for the first time, a ‘Double Vision’, if you like, of their individual visions of what abstraction is. Both artists explore the process of abstraction and mark making in different ways. Sometimes they clash, at others the connections between their paintings resonate like wind chimes. Their paintings are an expression of abstract thought and emotion through mark making. Mark making connects them and their paintings. It also connects them to the history of abstraction, a history that stretches back through time.

Abstraction is not simply a 20th century invention. Through abstraction we are connected to primordial artists, as evidenced in cave paintings, in the cities and streets we inhabit today, or as modern graffiti or various other forms of abstract mark making. Abstract marks are the manifestation of the temporal connections between contemporary life and our primordial desire to mark and self-express, which seems ubiquitous to mankind.

Both artists have developed and continue to expand their own visual vocabulary and visual philosophy into unique dialogues – visual dialogues that are informed by both their visual experiences and visual experiments. Expressing and composing this visual philosophy in paint can only be limited by adherence to criticism and a belief that it’s all been done.

Challenging these limitations, Ken looks outside the Western tradition of figuration, arguing that abstraction has evolved in every culture quite independently of the western figurative tradition and that it is born of a natural impulse to leave marks and represent thoughts. Julian, meanwhile takes inspiration from cultural areas that are on the periphery of art history, such as literature, Egyptian hieroglyphs and cartoons, mixing these elements to explore their formal similarities and the ironies of their juxtaposition.