D J Roberts: An enormous yes

1 Dec-21 Dec 2022

PV 1 Dec 2022, 5-8pm

Credit: Rosie Roberts

Overview

Bobinska Brownlee gallery is delighted to present An enormous yes,  a mixed media popup exhibition in Soho featuring neon, film, music, paintings and a series of large-scale posters.

An enormous yes marks the centenary of the poet Philip Larkin, focussing on the urban, streetwise side of Larkin, in particular on his passion for jazz.

The show is a development of the Larkinworld exhibitions first seen at The National Poetry Library London (2017) and then in Hull University (2022) where Larkin was the university librarian for thirty years.

Roberts writes "Psychologically Larkin's world may often be one of morbid obsession, but when I first started reading the poems it was his world of bars and shopping malls and cinemas that I responded to, and this is the world that still affects my reading of Larkin, this is the world I want to recognize in this show.

Nobody does train journeys better than Larkin, or urban edgelands, or hotels late at night. Nor do sharp shoes, iced lollies or Coke dispensers often get a mention in serious verse.

Larkin's is not an elitist world, but it is the world most of us live in, and no other major poet I can think of evokes it so vividly, so convincingly and with such acceptance and affection".

D J Roberts is a graduate of Central St Martins College of Art and Design (BA Hons Fine Art) and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (MA History). His practice includes painting, drawing, performance and public interventions. 

Recent shows include Larkinworld (National Poetry Library, Southbank Centre, London and Hull University, Hull), Intensity (curated by Paul Carey-Kent, House of St Barnabas, London), L'Osservatorio (CANAL, London Art Fair), Postcards from the Edge (Sikkema Jenkins, New York), Fall of the Rebel Angels (Castello 1610, Venice) and The Office of Gravitational Documents (Galerie Laurent Mueller, Paris).

In 2014 he was commissioned by Locws International to install a permanent neon text on the Kardomah cafe in Swansea as part of the Dylan Thomas centenary celebrations.

In addition to numerous solo and group exhibitions in private and public galleries, his work has featured in the Jerwood Drawing Prize, Mostyn 13 & 15, and Painting is Dead Long Live Painting - Contemporary British Painting Part 1 (selected by Gary Hume). 

An enormous yes 58 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0BL (Tues-Sat 11.30-7pm; Sun 12-5pm)