Jack Kettlewell

In his preoccupation with wider concerns and semantics of a reproduced image, Jack Kettlewell’s works bear the marks of the ‘post-painting’ tradition. Kettlewell’s paintings reproduce photographs sourced from the 1950s fashion magazines like Life and Vogue, a period most immediately associated with the first experiments in appropriation and the rise of the so-called critique of originality. “Appropriating this imagery offers an enquiry into a recent past which holds great interest in terms of re-assessing the current cultural and social environments,” explains the artist.

From within the art historical paradigm of appropriation, Kettlewell explores a possibility of media specificity. In the process of transposition of the rhetoric of a ‘found’ photographic image into the language of narrative painting, the signifying properties shift towards the materiality of paint on the surface, its seductive qualities and its expressive possibilities.

Born 1973 Saltburn by the Sea, Cleveland.

Education
1996-98: MA Fine Art, Staffordshire
1992-95: BA Fine Art, Staffordshire

Solo Exhibitions
2005: ‘Jack Kettlewell’, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London — ‘Disco dancing in the common culture’, Bettie Morton Gallery, London

Selected Group Exhibitions
2007: ‘Discerning eye’, Mall galleries, London — ‘Year_07 Art Projects’, London — ‘Aqua Wynwood art fair’, Miami, USA
2006: ‘Summer Show’, Royal Academy, London — ‘Mystery portraits’, National Portrait Gallery, London
2005: ‘Lynn Painter Stainers’, Painters’ Hall, London — ‘Jack Kettlewell’, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London — BP portrait award at the National Portrait Gallery, London — Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens — Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh
2004: ‘Brixton Open’, London — ‘Hunting Art Prize’, Royal College, London
2003: ‘Discerning eye’, Mall Galleries, London — ‘Brixton Open’, Bettie Morton Gallery, London — Farnborough hospital commission/artist-in-residence Hayes College