Bringing the past back to life. Sam Lock's exhibition in Milan

SAM LOCK INAUGURATES  CADOGAN GALLERY IN MILAN WITH AN EXHIBITION THAT BRINGS OLD YELLOWED PAPERS BACK TO LIFE

Is it possible to give new meanings to old yellowed pages? The answer is yes and to prove it is the exhibition of Sam Lock (London, 1973) in the new and bright spaces of  Cadogan Gallery in Via Bramante 5 in Milan.

The absolute protagonist is the paper : we are dealing with sheets that come from a damaged collection of art books on which Lock intervenes with signs and lines. The pages are then arranged in a grid on canvas and covered with lacquer.

These works are part of Lock's artistic research, based on the concepts of presence and absence, history and memory . The old yellowed pages, with their writings and blurry photos accompanied by signs made by the artist in a completely intuitive way, find a new expression that leads to a dialogue between past and present, in which the public can mirror itself thanks to the glossy surface of the lacquer.

Lock divides his creative act into two moments: “ There are two phases in my works: the energy and optimism of the 'now' and the commitment to add physical and immediate signs, surfaces, directions to the work ”.