GENRE PAINTINGS - Harry Whitelock at Bomb Factory Holborn

We are excited to present Genre Paintings, a solo exhibition by Harry Whitelock in our Holborn Gallery.

Whitelock's practice explores the enduring notion of the artist as a figure searching for meaning through making. His work examines the belief placed in the creative process as a way of understanding the human condition and our place in the world, while confronting the uncertainty and lack of resolution that often accompany artistic production. Drawing on familiar ideas of the artist as seeker and outsider, Whitelock considers how the artist's identity is formed and performed, and questions how much of that journey is shaped by inherited expectations of what an artist should be.

Whitelock's interest in belief systems is informed by his experience growing up within evangelical Christianity, which he no longer subscribes to, and by his subsequent questioning of the structures through which identity is formed. The exhibition considers the tension between systems that locate meaning externally, through shared frameworks and established beliefs, and artistic practice, where meaning is negotiated through individual interpretation and subjective experience. In Whitelock's work, making becomes a space of self-authorship, while also revealing how inherited structures continue to shape, limit and inform the way meaning is produced. Rather than offering escape from these systems, the work reflects on the difficulty of separating oneself from them, suggesting that meaning is always formed within and against existing frameworks.

Through sculpture, abstraction and installation, Genre Paintings reflects on the myths surrounding artistic practice and the continued desire to create, believe and search, examining why we keep pursuing meaning even when certainty remains out of reach.

PRIVATE VIEW: Thurs 9th July, 6-8pm

LOCATION: 99 Kingsway, WC2B 6QX

DATES: 10th July - 1st August

TIMES:Weds - Sat, 12-6pm