Katherine Jones RA and Temsuyanger Longkumer: Drop Shadows

Katherine Jones RA and Temsuyanger Longkumer: Drop Shadows
29th February – 14h March 2024
Sims Reed Gallery
43A Duke Street
St. James’s
London, SW1Y 6DD

Sims Reed Gallery and Oliver Projects are delighted to present Drop Shadows — a unique exhibition bringing together, for the first time, two contemporary artists – Katherine Jones RA and Temsuyanger Longkumer. Opening next spring, the exhibition will be a fusion of artistic visions exploring the delicate — and often deceptive – minutia of the natural world.

Having known each other as part of London’s printmaking community for over twenty years, Herefordshire-born artist Katherine Jones RA and Temsuyanger Longkumer, who grew up in Nagaland, Northeast India have formed a special and close friendship. Despite vastly different upbringings, their aligned artistic practices share an intense fascination with the subtly transformative forces of nature, and its power to represent both danger and refuge.

In Drop Shadows, the artists explore nature’s intricacies through three different art forms: painting, printmaking and sculpture. A renowned and accomplished printmaker, Jones has recently stepped outside her comfort zone to devote time to painting; this new body of unique works will be exhibited for the first time in this exhibition. Working on paper and wood panels, these works are investigating anthropomorphism in plants and parasites.

Jones’ vibrant new imagery, featuring rainbow-hued wings, gleaming eyes, and wobbly cacti, hovers between figuration and abstraction. Gently surreal and ambiguous, each composition is infused with – in the artist’s words “a bit of magical thinking”. This will contrast with Longkumer’s deeply symbolic objects which sit in quiet dialogue with the eerie luminosity that characterises Jones’ limited edition prints and paintings.

Earthy and tactile, Longkumer’s new collection of unique terracotta sculptures form the core of his multi-disciplinary artistic practice (his multi-media installation ‘Home’ was recently presented at the Venice International Film Festival.) Longkumer’s curvaceous, organic forms focus on the mysterious world of microorganisms but are also reminiscent of rolling landscapes and the human body, with skin or scale-like surfaces. The artist’s additions of pins and spikes appear both menacing and protective, representing nature’s wily ability to deceive.

Drop Shadows has been curated by Katherine Oliver who has amassed over 20 years’ experience in the art world, and is bringing together these dynamic artists’ works in dialogue for the first time.  This exhibition marks an exciting collaboration between Oliver Projects and Sims Reed Gallery, representing a new collaborative approach by pairing a respected, established gallery and rare book dealer with a recently founded nomadic gallery/online platform.

Katherine Jones RA and Temsuyanger Longkumer: Drop Shadows opens on the 29th of February until the 14h of March 2024 at Sims Reed Gallery

©2024 Sims Reed Gallery