Nemora – solo show from Juliette Losq

British artist Juliette Losq has opened her first solo show ‘‘Nemora’ in collaboration of the The Fine Art Society running from 12 September – 2 October 2014. The pieces display notions of ‘The clearing’, by referencing historical imagery (from the rococo to penny dreadfuls) and contemporary sites where nature encroaches upon civilization.  It includes drawings and drawn paper installations, some of which respond to the antique furnishings of the gallery.

Juliette Losq has an impressed résumé, including degrees in English Literature and History of Art at Newnham College, Cambridge (BA 2000), History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art (MA 2001), Fine Art at Wimbledon College of Art (BA 2007), and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Fine Art (2010) at the Royal Academy Schools, London. Losq won the Jerwood drawing prize in 2005, and was shortlisted for the Catlin Art Prize 2011. This year, Losq has shortlisted for the John Moore Prize additionally her installation ‘Wunderkammer’ was acquired by the Saatchi Collection.

The title ‘Nemora’ refers to a “nemus” (pl nemora) as described in the Teutonic Mythology of Jacob Grimm (a German philologist, jurist and mythologist, more popularly, as one of the Brothers Grimm, editor of Grimm’s Fairy Tales) as being “a woodland pasture, a grove, a sacrum silvae” places of celebration and sacrifice dedicated to woodland deities.  Losq’s pieces allude to the 18th and 19th century English ‘Gothic’ as characterised by fragmented narratives telling stories of mysterious incidents and danger. 

Losq’s hauntingly beautiful paintings are produced via a method of working repetitively over the surface, creating multiple painted layers simultaneously obscuring and revealing those beneath, working on both paper and canvas. The exhibit has 3 object based works including a piece on paper that infuses itself with the existing ornate fire place on the ground floor of the gallery. A second piece showcases a wave of paper tumbling from an antique grandfather clock across the contemporary gallery floor.

I personally really love how Losq creates a mix of imagery from a number of sources such as rococo (an 18th-century artistic movement and style) prints, newspaper illustrations from the Victorian era and, my favorite element, science fiction and horror films. These become woven in with the detritus of the marginal areas that the artist describes. Incorporating the rococo imagery into her pieces, Losq draws attention to how the excessive use of natural forms in our culture have rendered their vitality impotent – removing them far from their original forms.

The show is currently on at the Fine Art Society, New Bond Street, until 2 October 2014 and I highly recommend a visit if you like something a little different from your art.