Jeremy Dickinson

PRESS RELEASE

Jeremy Dickinson

14 September – 19 October 2001

Artist reception: Friday, 14 September, 6 to 8 pm

Anthony Meier Fine Arts is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition of new work by British artist Jeremy Dickinson. Exhibiting with Anthony Meier Fine Arts for the second time, Dickinson’s work continues to center around his life-long fascination with the various means of transportation.

Using his childhood car collection as the codex, Dickinson brings form and substance to the random display of objects and presents them with exacting detail.  The toy vehicles are stacked in totem-format with the variations reiterating his childhood obsession through a mix of wry conceptualism and youthful whimsy.

Dickinson’s most recent work has begun to give his vehicles their own personalities. His toy cars and trucks have moved from being stoic models to active participants on the canvas.  Other childhood games are referenced. 

As Dickinson adds to his collection of old toy autos, played with and wrecked by anonymous owners, so the paintings – and the scenarios in them – have become more complex. 

While some of the paintings in the exhibition continue, in the tradition of still life, to study the chipped and dented vehicles, Dickinson is now also introducing other characters into his work. Old cardboard boxes become bus depots, filing boxes are stacked to represent hills, toy building blocks become bridge piers supporting roadways, and old toy caravans are rigged together with lengths of string to create makeshift cable cars.  Other toys and models, as diverse as dragons, scarecrows and metal cacti also make appearances along with the vehicles. 

Exhibiting a large group of new work, Dickinson has experimented not only with the contents of his paintings but also with the size of the canvases on which they are presented. Thus, this body of work evidences Dickinson’s continued mastery of his craft and his ability to explore and advance the concept of the mundane.