Jock McFadyen

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Kill Matthew Barney
27 September 2007 - 21 October 2007
Open Tuesday to Sunday 11am - 6pm
The Grey Gallery at nomoregrey
23-25 Redchurch Street
London E2 7DJ

McFadyen’s bleak cityscapes chart contemporary London. As with writers Sinclair and Ackroyd this place has been his subject for over 25 years and exhibitions have focussed on his monumental landscapes of urban wastelands. Iain Sinclair has called him ‘the laureate of stagnant canals, filling stations and night football pitches’.
‘Kill Matthew Barney’ is a show of recent paintings made as the eastern fringes of London wait to be transformed into a new glistering vista of Olympia.
Despite not having gone digital Iain Sinclair is still a more libidinous shooter than McFadyen. Memory and megapixels don’t change the habits of a lifetime and after years of selective snapping, the artist is still saving up his bullets. Sneaking back to the dual carriageway weeks later the graffiti cleaners have visited and the image has gone...
“Iain, did you get a shot of the Kill Matthew Barney sticker...?”
“Sure, I’ll send you a print.”
The print is fine. The typeface, the spacing and the jaunty angle are all there. All is well. Padding over the footbridge half a year later on another trip the artist is shocked to see that the sticker has returned to exactly the same spot.
‘Kill Matthew Barney’ is back.
Jock McFadyen was born in Paisley in 1950 and has worked in London since graduating from Chelsea School of Art in 1977. Solo exhibitions include The Imperial War Museum 1991, Kelvingrove Art Gallery 1992, Talbot Rice 1998, Pier Arts Centre, Orkney 1999, Agnew’s, London 2001 and Rude Wercs, London 2005. His work is held in over 30 public collections, including the Tate, National Gallery, V & A, British Museum and Imperial War Museum. A monograph on the artist was published by Lund Humphries in 2001.