The summer exhibition at Rook & Raven showcases the work of two graduates, Vivien Zhang and Laurence Owen. Curated by Aretha Campbell, the show explores the artists’ fascination with form and the place of painting and sculpture within the prevailing art scene.

Vivien Zhang is a graduating student from the Royal College of Art whose work looks at the idea of repetition and authority. Her paintings construct self-perpetual systems and revisit specific personal objects of significance. References range from the Chinese dynasties to elements from contemporary culture.

Laurence Owen works to investigate the evolution of a thing – be it object, image, letter or word – through his art. His work takes different forms including painting and ceramic shapes and the representation he selects often maintains an underlying recognition as to where its influence has been drawn. He takes items out of their original context and explores the effect of another.

He’s concerned with the possibility of endless metamorphic growth from a single source: how an idea can evolve whilst maintaining the basis from which it comes. Placing traditionally recognisable cultural attributes for art (painting) and function (ceramics) alongside one another, Owen creates a dialogue between the two and, by extension, between his work and Zhang’s.

Vivien Zhang & Laurence Owen, until 1 September, Rook & Raven, 7 Rathbone Place, London, W1T 1HN, www.rookandraven.co.uk.

Credit:
1. Vivien Zhang, Twofold (2014) Oil and acrylic on canvas 51 x 56 cm. Courtesy of Rook & Raven

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