Samuel Levi Jones: Longing

Longing presents new paintings and works on paper by Samuel Levi Jones that see the artist continue to develop his practice of abstraction as a means of transformation. The exhibition critiques authoritative systems, featuring works made from pulped and deconstructed materials that hold an institutional history, including law and history books, encyclopedias, print portfolios, and US flags. Jones’s use of pulped US flags in the painting god and country (2023) prompts an inquiry into the varied histories they represent as patriotic symbols, while the use of deconstructed print portfolios—sourced from the gallery’s own archive—in a selection of new works creates space for a critique of the practices that created the exclusive Western cannon of Art History. As the artist explains, his practice is driven by “a desire to create a space where information, that encompasses all, coexists, without fear, so that the pendulum stops its violent swing from one extreme perspective and back again.”