THE WORK OF TOM LOVELACE ENCOURAGES WANDERINGS ACROSS DECADES, RE-CONSIDERING THE PHOTOGRAPH AS DOCUMENT OR ART (FOX TALBOT), THE PHOTOGRAPHIC DOCUMENT AS ART OR ANTI-ART (BRETON, BATAILLE, BRECHT), AND THE ENDLESS PERMUTATIONS THAT ARE PART OF CONCEPTUAL ART AND ITS LEGACY

DAVID EVANS

Tom Lovelace is a London based artist, working across photography and performance. Lovelace’s practice is shaped by the collaborative histories of photography, phenomenology, theatre and the languages and legacies of abstraction. Since 2017, Lovelace has been developing the Living Pictures; presenting interactive exhibition spaces, exploring contemporary photography, sites of architecture and moments in art history. Lovelace is currently completing doctoral research, with a focus on the Living Pictures, at the University of Westminster. As a Lecturer he works at the Royal College of Art, London and Glasgow School of Art.

Tom Lovelace frees photography from its traditional role as a realist mode of representation by creating photographs and sculptural installations that become a critical index of themselves. Drawing our attention to the surface, to the physicality of the photograph, through staged and spontaneous interventions in which we become part of a performance, the artist asks us to rethink what it means to witness in an age in which seeing no longer means believing. By disrupting the passive process of viewing photographs, of merely seeing through them, Lovelace challenges us to think with these images, and by bringing us into relation with others, including himself, he makes us aware that there is a politics at stake. Invited to interact with selected works, we are confronted with our own unique preconceptions of what constitutes a photograph and what distinguishes it from a work of art. In the artist’s constructed reflective landscapes and collaborative installations, spectators become actors, and judgment becomes collective experience. Lisa Stein, Mirror Mirror, Bodø Biennale

Recent exhibitions and performances include Heavy on my Mind, Academy of Visual Art (Ljubljana 2024) / Body Image, Serchia Gallery (Bristol 2024) / Known and Strange, Victoria and Albert Museum (London 2023) / Doing and Undoing Islands, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2023), Your Echo, Hockney Gallery, Royal College of Art (London 2023) / A Sudden Vanishing, Seen Fifteen (London 2023), Repetition Room, Atletika Gallery (Vilnius 2022) / Bathers, The National Gallery (London 2022) & Sid Motion Gallery (London 2021) / Eclipse, Bodø Biennale, NŌUA (Norway 2022) / A Japanese Dream, Van Gogh House London (2022) & The Eye Sees (Arles 2022) / The State of Things, Landskrona Foto (Sweden 2022 & 2020) / The Dancer and the Shadow, Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris 2020) / On Photographic Beings, The National Museum of Art (Riga, Latvia 2020) / Present Tense, Materia Gallery (Rome 2019) / Interval, Flowers Gallery (London 2019) / Postcards from Prison, Sotheby’s (London 2018) / On Board, Crispr (Bogota 2017) / On the heights, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2017) / Tipping Point, Alma Zevi Gallery (Venice 2016) / Groundwork, The New Art Centre (Salisbury 2015) / Mirage Valley, Lendi Projects (Switzerland 2015) / To Camera, Golden Thread Gallery (Belfast 2015) / This Way Up, Flowers Gallery (London 2015) / Project 05, Contemporary Art Society (London 2014) / In Preparation for Arles, Les Rencontres d'Arles (France 2013) / Art Licks, ICA (London 2012), Work Starts Here, Son Gallery (London 2012) / Uncommon Ground, Flowers Gallery (London 2012) / Vessel, Karst, British Art Show 7 (Plymouth 2011).

Residencies include London South Bank University (2019-2020), Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2017), Allegra Projects, Switzerland (2017), Lendi Projects, Switzerland (2015), European Capital of Culture, Aarhus, Denmark (2013) and the Anna Mahler International Foundation, Italy (2012). Curatorial projects include Body Language (2023), A Home of Pictures (2022), Performing Dawns (2021), With Monochrome Eyes (2020), Rehearsing the Real (2019), Concealer (2018) and At Home She’s a Tourist (2017).

Lovelace’s practice has been featured and reviewed in The Art Newspaper, Frieze Magazine, Vogue Magazine, Dazed and Confused, Le Monde diplomatique, 1000 Words Magazine, AnOther Magazine, Time Out London, Foam, The Financial Times, Wallpaper Magazine, Philosophy of Photography, Generazione Critica, The Guardian, The Observer, The Telegraph, The Royal Photographic Society, Aesthetica Magazine, American Suburb X, The Learned Pig, Of The Afternoon, Source Photographic Review, Photoworks, Self Publish Be Happy, British Journal of Photography, a-n and The Rebel Magazine. Lovelace has previously been nominated for the Foam Paul Huf Award, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, Prix Pictet Award and the Infinity Award (International Center of Photography, New York). His books, Work Starts Here (2013), This way up (2016) and Bathers (2021) are held in the Tate Artist's Book Collection and the Museum of Modern Art (NYC).

Lovelace studied Photography at the Arts University Bournemouth, receiving BA First Class Honours before studying at Goldsmiths College, University of London. As a lecturer Lovelace has delivered talks and workshops at the Royal Academy of the Arts (London), Tate Modern, The Photographers’ Gallery, Frieze Art Fair, Somerset House (London), World Photography Organisation, Grain Projects, Golden Thread Gallery (Belfast), Centre for Contemporary Photography (Melbourne), University of Wales, London College of Communication, Southampton Solent University, Bristol University, London South Bank University, Ithaca College, Arts University Bournemouth, Falmouth University, Derby University, University of Central Lancashire, Portsmouth University, Sheffield Hallam University, UCA Canterbury, UCA Farnham, UCA Rochester, Brighton University, Norwich University of the Arts, Camberwell College of Arts, University of Westminster and Manchester School of Art.

CONTACT

tomlovelacestudio@gmail.com

IG - @tomlovelacestudio

All images copyright ©Tom Lovelace 2024