Pippy Houldsworth is pleased to present a solo exhibition by successful British painter Robert Platt.  Platt, who graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2001, now lives and works in Kyoto, Japan.  

Platt adopts the medium of painting to explore a series of dichotomies with particular reference to nature versus artifice. In Huntorama he explores the desire for a lost Eden in a time when nature has become both increasingly mediated and domesticated.  Huntorama stages a rich mix of Japanese landscape imbued with a British sensibility.  The artist has noted that he is ultimately “interested in pursuing this dichotomy of signs in nature”.  The palette of the paintings also works in juxtaposition to that which they represent: off-key shades of pale greens, yellows and neon hues latently insinuating decay.  The imagery is drawn from fictional landscapes, folk references and personal photographic archives combined and manipulated on a computer.  Despite the relative accuracy achieved by the projected image Platt resorts to sabotage – the haphazard daubs and drips of paint showing his faithfulness to the medium.  The technique becomes as opposed as the subject matter; his bid for technical perfection operating against the opportunism associated with intuition.

Robert Platt is represented by Pippy Houldsworth, London and Gallery Koyanagi, Japan.  In 2006 Platt was awarded the Vision of Contemporary Art prize at UENO Museum, Tokyo and his work is now featured in the permanent collection.  Exhibitions include Tech Mac Mayacom, Myonichikan, Tokyo; Kito Kengo & Robert Platt, Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo; Chinaware in Translation, special installation, Bice, Tokyo; Tamed and Framed, Harris Museum; Dynamic Entropy, Pippy Houldsworth, London, and New London Kicks, curated by Simon Rumley, New York.

Image: Robert Platt, Paradise Garden, 2008, oil on canvas, 130 x 162 cm, 51.2 x 63 in