With exhibitions and projects postponed due to the pandemic and without access to a studio, Giles Round spent successive lockdowns confined to working from home. 91 days of clear blue skies, Round’s first solo exhibition since the world closed down and started to open up again, presents work from the series And after: a summer, of yes, more love. 1994.
The works in the exhibition, created in oil stick, pencil and watercolour on paper and linen, depict Round’s immediate surroundings during tiered winter restrictions and lockdown - the house and garden, and the world elsewhere - through time and space, via images found in A Selection of Snapshots Taken by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, A.R.T. Press, 2010.
The 35mm photographs, sent by Gonzáles-Torres to friends, and later collated in a book, 'are quick poetic communiqués, a visual report on Felix's outlook at particular moments in time, small gestures of hope, pleasure, and desire. They give evidence to some of his multiple fascinations: pets, furniture, collectible dolls, politics, art, friendship, beauty, love, and optimism’. Varying in abstraction and subject, Round’s works include still-life interiors, groundworks for his self-build studio, flowers and snapshots by Felix Gonzáles-Torres. depictions of Round’s reality are combined with the imagery found in the publication. Through glimpses of palm trees, Miami Beach, house plants, bedrooms, New York, LA, the view from Ann and Christopher’s window and golden hour, 91 days of clear blue skies dives into the personal, the mundane, the borrowed and the intimate, after a time when we were kept apart, and after: a summer, of yes, more love.
GILES ROUND is an artist who currently lives and works in London & St Leonards on Sea. Round works across disciplines – including art, design and architecture – through a wide range of techniques and approaches including ceramics, furniture, painting, print and sculpture. Recent exhibitions include: Untitled, circa 1994, Brighton CCA, Brighton (2020); The Director (AKA A fairly inarticulate and insecure businessman), The Hepworth Wakefield, Yorkshire (2018); Living with Buildings, Wellcome Collection, London (2018); 1967, Goswell Road, Paris (2018); They bow. Curtain. No applause., Spike Island, Bristol (2017).
