Cold Sweat

About

Luke Hannam is an established British artist with an energetic dedication to drawing and a relentless desire to explore images and motifs. This exhibition presents a new body of work by the artist, representing an ambitious leap forward in his practice. Fascinated by making paintings that have an instant, fleshy and visceral appeal, Hannam has developed a more open and experimental context within which to explore painting without boundaries. In this exhibition, Hannam invites you into his nebulous world, in which he brings the physical, cerebral and playful all together.

“Cold Sweat emerged from a desire to find a new relationship between myself and painting, to be less reverential and more instinctive. The motif of the Robot introduced an absurdity, something outside of art resulting in a more intuitive and energetic response. – in a nutshell it helped me forget about the history of painting. Like a great dance record, it became something I could respond to physically, viscerally and intuitively.” – Luke Hannam

Hannam’s practice is informed by an extensive background in music. After graduating from Canterbury College of Art, Hannam moved to Northeast England, principally to paint but also to make music. He spent more than fifteen years running a music college and found success as a musician, initially with his band ENC. During the late 1990s, he founded the band GRAMME, which signed to Trevor Jackson’s hugely influential record label Output Records and achieved critical acclaim. Post Punk, hip-hop and Dance culture went on to have a major impact on Hannam’s creative personality, establishing a deep commitment to mixing languages and styles, which later proved to be fundamental in his painting. His approach to bass playing has often been compared to the way he draws and paints – passionate, brutal and distinctly beautiful.

Press enquiries: Henrietta Roeder, Practise Room, [email protected].