UNIT9 is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new works by London-based artist Ben Jamie. Jamie’s paintings and sculpture explore the boundaries between recognition and abstraction, morphing the ordinary into the unfamiliar.

Inspiration comes from a plethora of sources: fly-tipping; studio detritus; trans-humanism and conspiracy theories. Taking found material as source imagery, Jamie abstracts items of garbage into purely compositional forms on canvas that are strewn with abject intestinal imagery. For his project with UNIT9, Jamie draws from one source painting, expanding elements from this ‘host’ work into subsequent paintings. His paintings are exhibited alongside several small sculptures inspired by found material.

Jamie’s paintings depict notional, metamorphic spaces that contain their own logic:  shapes that have associations; something in a state of flux; inherent forms that are discovered when exposed to extremities or in response to an external force. Oscillating between planes of perception, the works are informed in part by late night readings of conspiracy and esoterica that trickle into the subconscious. Open drawing is integral to Jamie’s process, where the surfaces of his paintings are worked over many times until a final image is revealed.

The works are an experiment in the hierarchy of image, transforming the guttural through its legislation into painterly compositions with markedly processed colour palettes informed by progressive rock. Although based somewhere in reality, Jamie’s works remain undisturbed by the real world.

Ben Jamie (b. 1978, Nottingham) has recently completed the Turps Art School Painters Studio Programme (2014-16) and was a prize-winner at the 2016 John Moores Painting Prize. Selected group shows include ‘Pay No Attention To That Man Behind the Curtain’ at Blain|Southern (London, 2015) and ‘Turps Goes West’ at Edel Assanti Gallery (London, 2015). His first solo exhibition opened at Castor Projects in London in December 2016.