Simon Preston Gallery is delighted to present ‘dull as I am, i hope to live by these lines’, an exhibition of works on paper by Hurvin Anderson, Nick Goss, Norbert Schwontkowski and Caragh Thuring. The show will open to the public on Thursday July 8 and run until Friday August 13, 2010.

Each of the artists in the show employ drawing to impress their sense of self-awareness through mark-making, that is either independent or complementary to their painting. The title of show, while hinting at the bucolic nature of the images, looks to underscore the importance of drawing in each of the artists practice.

Hurvin Anderson presents a series of works depicting the scene of a river baptism in Jamaica. Through repetition, the image becomes a vivid memory, pulsating and appearing to evolve in the precise instant of looking. The heavy pigments spread on the surface of the paper build on a foundation of remembrance while echoing the tactile characteristics of the location.

In his watercolors, Nick Goss creates a Bergsonian space, where space and time merge in each image. Pictorial space assumes both relative and abstract importance, coinciding with emotional properties of the reality represented by the artist. As a result, the drawing lines thicken and become more expressive in the area where the main event occurs, creating an ideal visual path into the nostalgia-strewn scenes.

Norbert Schwontkowski’s monotypes impress on the paper the memory of his works on canvas. Through this gesture, the artist erases every trace of the original representation by creating two new parallel realities. The emotional universe, which led the artist to paint the image on canvas, becomes an indefinite space suspended between two worlds the artist destroys and describes at the same time.

Caragh Thuring makes drawings, whose oscillating lines appear to be produced by the needle of a seismograph, recording her every cognitive movement. As a consequence, these ink on paper drawings have a spontaneous quality generated by a continuous change of expressive intensity and spatial openness.

Hurvin Anderson was born in Birmingham, UK in 1965 and lives and works in London. He completed his MA in painting at the Royal College of Art, 1996-98, and his BA Hons Fine Art at Wimbledon School of Art, 1991-94. He has exhibited widely in the UK, including at TATE Britain. He showed Peter’s Series at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2009.

Nick Goss was born in Bristol, UK, in 1981 and lives and works in London. Goss studied at the Slade, University College, London, 2002-06 and the Royal Academy Schools, 2006-09. He had his first solo exhibition at Josh Lilley Gallery in London in June 2010. Other recent exhibitions include Saatchi New Sensations in October 2009 and NEWSPEAK: British Art Now, currently on view at the Saatchi Gallery.

Norbert Schwontkowski lives and works between Bremen and Berlin. Since he began exhibiting in the late 1970’s, Norbert has had numerous solo exhibitions in Germany, France, Belgium, New Zealand and the US. In 2006 he had a solo exhibition at Mitchell-Innes Nash, New York and currently has a solo exhibition titled Dirty on view at Kerlin Gallery in Dublin.

Caragh Thuring was born in Brussels and lives and works in London. Recent shows include Assembly in September 2009 at this gallery and a solo exhibition at Thomas Dane Gallery, London in April 2009. Caragh is also included in NEWSPEAK: British Art Now, currently on view at the Saatchi Gallery.