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20.
February
2018.
Press Release | MALL GALLERIES | Falcke on the Mall | 5 to 17 March

PRESS RELEASE 19 | 02 | 18

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John Falcke | Falcke on The Mall

First Exhibition in a Lifetime of Painting

North Gallery, Mall Galleries, London | 5 to 17 March 2018

John Falcke in the 1950s | Image courtesy the artist

John Falcke has been painting since the 1950s but has never before shown his work in public. This first exhibition of painting, drawing and sculpture at London's Mall Galleries introduces a lifetime's dedicated work which, until now, was known only to a handful of friends and colleagues.

Falcke was born in Kensington in 1934 and enrolled at Regent Street Polytechnic School of Art - now the Chelsea College of Art - in 1952. A painter in the Modernist style, he has never sought public recognition, nor the validation of selling his work, but now, aged 84, he has been encouraged by friends and family to exhibit for the very first time. This exhibition, therefore, details 60 years of artistic development free from the influence of commercial expectation and traces the artist's pursuit of a singular artistic vision, from his early training, to the creative maturity of later life. Throughout his career, Falcke's method has been to produce an extended series of works over a number of years, followed by an abrupt change in direction. This approach has seen him apply his reductive style and relentless self-criticism to genres as diverse as still life, nudes, portraiture and landscape, and a wide range of mediums including drawing, painting and sculpture, in a seemingly endless negotiation between figurative and non-figurative art.

"When I was a naïve art student at Regent Street Poly in the 1950s, I soon became aware of a dilemma. I found that the first marks I put down in response to a thing seen were already destroying the very nature of what I was attempting to capture. That dilemma has in no way been resolved. Like the ebb and flow of a tide I move with endless repetition between realism and abstraction, one being a momentary haven from the other; from the confusion of realism to the purity of abstraction, from the sterility of abstraction to the fertility of natural forms; from the slavery of one to the freedom of the other, to and fro, on and on like life itself." John Falcke.

"John Falcke's art to-date has only ever been admired by his close friends and family visiting his home in West Sussex. Upon entering the four-storey townhouse guests are bombarded with a plentiful array of paintings and drawings adorning every wall space in every room with minimal gaps between the frames. Following recent years of prolific creating, racing against the inevitable clock of mortality, the time is ripe for these works to be seen." Daniel Davidson, friend and author.

Images left to right: Green Sitting Figure | Norma Combing Her Hair | Chinese Fishing Nets

SeeFalcke on The Mallat North Gallery, Mall Galleries, London from 5 to 17 March 2018. The majority of works in this collection are for public display only, though a small selection will be available for sale.Go towww.falcke.co.ukand www.mallgalleries.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/falcke-on-mall for further information.

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Print ready 300pdi images for press use:

John Falcke in the 1950s 

JOHN FALCKE Green Sitting Figure
 
JOHN FALCKE Norma Combing Her Hair 

JOHN FALCKE Chinese Fishing Nets


 

Editors Notes

John Falke

John Falcke lives and works in West Sussex. Born in Kensington in 1934, he was the only child of eccentric but loving parents. His art education began in 1952, at Regent Street Polytechnic, where his interest in the arts was awakened and his originality as a painter released. Using marks entirely his own he captures everyday human experience, freezing chosen moments or actions, by stripping away unnecessary marks, to present poetic images that are simultaneously familiar and unique.  There is bold simplicity too in the art materials he employs: hardboard, MDF or newspaper; household gloss or enamel paints, with chalk or oil pastels to add texture. It is not unusual for him to spend two years or more on a single subject, tenaciously producing many variations on the one topic. Ever his own harshest critic, there is nothing that may not undergo further change. Whether in the sensitivity of his paintings, the spontaneity of his drawings, or the wit of his sculpture, John Falcke has spent over 60 years creating highly personal Modernist images, intriguing and profound and beautiful.

 

For further press information, interviews or additional images contact Mercedes Smith at
 
Fine Art Communications | director@fineartcommunications.co.uk | Tel 07825 270235www.fineartcommunications.co.uk