Current
18.4 – 6.7 2024
Jakob Rowlinson:Thirteen Fools
3–5 Swallow Street
Jakob Rowlinson:Thirteen Fools
18.04 – 06.07.2024
Current
Hours
Monday to Saturday
10:00 am – 5:30 pm
Gallery
3–5 Swallow Street
London
W1S 2PE
Huxley-Parlour are delighted to present Thirteen Fools, a new exhibition of works by Jakob Rowlinson at the gallery’s project space. The exhibition, the artist’s first solo presentation with the gallery, incorporates sculptural and wall-based works that ruminate on themes of esotericism, queerness and the archive. Rowlinson has created a new suite of anthropomorphic masks that sit alongside heavily collaged assemblages that draw inspiration from Tarot, medieval iconography and decorative marginalia.
Responding intuitively to his materials, Rowlinson incorporates leather, metal, beads, studs, painted eyeballs and metallic charms into his work. The process is iterative, tacking or placing elements in a shifting understanding of composition before weaving and pasting together: a white rose emerges from a harlequin print background, buttons and charms embellish, leather surfaces are gilded with gold leaf. Incorporating an expansive range of media, Rowlinson allows the works to take on a hybridity. Blending the material and the symbolic, the works offer a renewed interrogation of semiology and the categorisation of meaning, presenting a queering of vocabularies and iconographies.
The Exhibition
4
The Works
13
Jakob Rowlinson
A Fool’s Hand
2024
Leather shoes, leather hides, gold leaf, laces, eyelets, cotton thread, rings, waxed cotton thread, gilt rivets, steel armature
Jakob Rowlinson
Enimagick
2024
Leather belt, leather hide, gold leaf, vintage chain belt, painted eyes, cotton thread, eyelets, waxed cotton thread, rings, steel armature
Jakob Rowlinson
Mask’o’phoria
2024
Leather shoes, leather hides, silver leaf, assorted charms and buttons, eyelets, cotton thread, rings, waxed cotton thread, gilt rivets, goats tooth, sweet gum balls, screws, steel armature
Jakob Rowlinson
A Supple Malediction
2024
Assorted buttons, sword charms, leather shoes, leather hides, kilt pin, eyelets, cotton thread, waxed cotton thread, rings, steel armature
Jakob Rowlinson
Mask XIII (The Lepidopterist’s Nightmare)
2024
Leather, shoes and mixed media
Jakob Rowlinson
Mask VII (post-metamorphosis)
2024
Leather, shoes, eyelets and pins
Jakob Rowlinson
The Apogee of Foolishness
2024
Steel rod, leather shoes, laces, roller skates, gold leaf, cotton thread, eyelets, vintage belt, freshwater pearls, rings, jean buttons, painted eyes, rivets and eyelets
Jakob Rowlinson
Suede Dreams
2024
Digital jacquard tapestry with leather, braid, cotton thread, and Mask (leather shoe, zip, vintage belt, painted eyes, gold lead, waxed cotton thread)
Jakob Rowlinson
Four of Swords
2024
Acrylic modelling paint on card
Jakob Rowlinson
The Fool
2024
Acrylic modelling paint on card
Jakob Rowlinson
Seven of Wands
2024
Acrylic modelling paint on card
Jakob Rowlinson
Three of Coins
2024
Acrylic modelling paint on card
Jakob Rowlinson
Five of Cups
2024
Acrylic modelling paint on card
B. United Kingdom1990
Biography
Jakob Rowlinson intertwines the natural world with medieval symbolism, questioning the bounds of masculinity throughout time. Using collage and felt, Rowlinson intertwines decorative patterns from medieval designs and manuscript marginalia within a wider expanse of organic iconography. Lining his backgrounds with organic green moss, ferns, and foliage, Rowlinson then adds stylised symbols with a modern twist. His focus on hands reaches into an exploration of gender and sexuality, commenting on the expressive gestures and emotions that can be conveyed using one’s hands.
Rowlinson, born in 1990, studied Fine Art at Ruskin School of Art, before completing an MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art. He completed a residency at Fores Project, London in 2022 and has had solo exhibitions at the Dowse Museum, New Zealand, OOF Gallery, London, Quench Gallery, Margate, Tandsticksmuseet, Sweden, and Clearview, London. Rowlinson lives and works in London. Rowlinson lives and works in London.
Image © Ally Rosenberg.