A single exhibition of new work across both Matt’s Gallery and The Sunday Painter.

Matt’s Gallery
6 Charles Clowes Walk
London, SW11 7AN

&

The Sunday Painter
117-119 South Lambeth Road
London, SW8 1XA

Private View & Performance:
Thursday 23 May, 6-9pm at both spaces

Artist’s Talk:
1 June 2024, 3:00pm – 4:00pm at Matt's Gallery

Exhibition continues: 24 May – 7 July 2024
Wed-Sun, 12-6pm accross both spaces

Located just 10 minutes’ walk from each other, Matt's Gallery and The Sunday Painter are pleased to present an exhibition in two parts. The galleries have worked collaboratively to help Judge realise a new body of work that brings the artist’s wall-based plaster pieces into dialogue with new developments with free standing and floor-based sculptures.

A Ghost Dance is a show that references funeral rites, processions and the presence of ghosts and spirits. It draws on persistent themes in Judge’s work: life, death, ritual and rebirth, creating parallels between the deconstructed body and the cosmos.

Harminder Judge is preoccupied with physical and spiritual transformation - a body becoming ash, material becoming immaterial, the physical becoming metaphysical. It revisits early elements of his practice, extends recent developments in his work, and opens up new areas of exploration. His work sets into motion dialogues between Western Modernism, Indian Neo Tantric painting, American Transcendental painting and familial funeral traditions drawn from rural Punjab.

The Ghost Dance of the title refers to a Native American ceremony. This type of circle dance was practised to raise the spirits of the dead in order to have them fight alongside the living to reclaim land from the colonial settlers.

Over recent years Judge has developed a distinctive and innovative practice grounded in an extended exploration of pigmented plaster as an artistic medium. The plaster sets – freezing a record of its creation in time - the surface is worked, polished and slowly worn away to reveal layers of colour, texture and movement beneath. This process embraces chance, and over time he has pushed it further with each new work. The results are sensual and seductive, with surfaces appearing sleek and shimmering. They have an illusory quality, seeming to hover in front of the wall, suggesting depth, evoking the idea of a portal or doorway and inviting the viewer to stay with them in contemplation.

For Matt’s Gallery Judge will work at scale, developing a monumental, enveloping expanse of material, pigment and colour for the space and setting this into dialogue with new discreet, floor-based semi-figurative works redolent of funereal urns or totems.

For The Sunday Painter, Judge will combine new works on a smaller scale with a new cadaver-like sculpture devised for their space.

A processional performance between the two spaces will take place on the opening night, recalling early performance works by the artist.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a new essay by Susanna Davies-Crook, building on her previous text Spectres and Portals: The Work of Harminder Judge, produced for the artist’s debut solo show in India at Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai in 2023.

Free, no booking required.


Artist’s Talk with Susanna Davies-Crook

Join us for an insightful conversation between artist Harminder Judge and writer/curator Susanna Davies-Crook as they delve into Judge’s two-part exhibition, A Ghost Dance. Their conversation will cover a spectrum of topics including belief, ritual, consciousness, material process, matter, and abstraction.

This event is part of London Gallery Weekend and will take place at Matt’s Gallery.

Free, booking required via the London Gallery Weekend website.

A Ghost Dance at Matt’s Gallery is supported by the Henry Moore Foundation.