John Marchant Gallery is very pleased to present a show of paintings and works on paper by British artist Jamie Reid (1947-2023), focusing principally on a period of work which has largely remained unseen.
Reid trained as a painter at Croydon College in the late 1960’s, alongside his lifelong friend Malcolm McLaren, both of course principal architects of Punk in the mid-1970’s. During the 1980’s Reid was provided with a studio space by Malcolm Garrett at Assorted iMaGes in Shoreditch, giving him the opportunity to return to large scale painting, Reid was well aware of Rudolph Steiner’s colour theories, connecting colour to the soul and for its use in healing and wellbeing. Reid had stated that he wanted his paintings to function as some sort of spiritual elevator, and would have liked to have worked in hospitals, taking his interest in colour theory into new areas. He was always mindful of the potential for improvement in everything - schools, media outlets, healthcare. Like Steiner, Reid removed black from his palette (as being too negative), preferring to use colours to both ground himself and to release his spirit, predominantly using strong yellows and blues, reds and greens. Later, semi-automatic writings - some examples are also included in this presentation - revealed his thoughts on these paintings as well as a host of other subjects which included Universalism, political inertia, colonialism and the Society of The Spectacle. “It may take the future to reveal their translation of time & place & meaning. They are painted & conceived in a trance state of mind…”
The paintings are untitled and unframed, and were not intended to be conventionally stretched. They are here presented simply nailed to the walls of the gallery, alongside framed examples of the aforementioned text works, which Reid worked on relentlessly from the period 2017 to 2023. The archive contains hundreds of examples of both paintings and text works, this presentation being a near random sample. The exhibition also includes one large scale painted hanging from the mid 1990’s that includes screen printed esoteric symbols devised by Reid including his signature OVA glyph, and one collage from the same period to contextualise the direction Reid’s work was taking in his later years.
John Marchant was a close collaborator with Reid, having organised his NYC retrospective show Peace Is Tough in 1997, which travelled internationally. He is also the curator and custodian of the Jamie Reid Archive, which contains work from the late 1960’s through to the artist’s passing in 2023.
Gallery hours are 10am-6pm Thursday and Friday, and 11am-6pm on Saturday. The exhibition is also available to view by appointment.
A free, full colour booklet with an essay by John Marchant is available to visitors.