In late 2021, after studio visits, Adam approached Luke about organising a show together. They had met one another through various jobs a few years before and they occasionally ran into each other at private views. They did their MAs at Chelsea in different years, far enough apart that there were no mutual peers. Adam and Luke had both lived out of the country of their birth, and Luke had recently returned to making paintings. It seemed to be a good fit.
Luke wrote to Adam. Adam replied. Luke wrote back.
Adam and Luke were in a group show at Kingsgate Project Space in 2021 called Your Foot in my Face and other tectonic strategies, so they both knew Dan Howard-Birt and were familiar with the gallery. They put together a proposal with their work and a fragment of their conversation and sent the draft to Dan to see if he had any ideas about the proposal and any art spaces that might be open to it. Dan replied and said he would like to do it at Kingsgate Project Space, and they agreed.
As the dialogue continued, Luke thought it might be a good idea to create a publication that would document this correspondence, Adam agreed. Adam suggested he wanted a narrator on top of the dialogue. He had just watched Once upon a time in Hollywood. He liked the way the movie had a third voice, Kurt Russell. Then he got embarrassed and thought it was a silly idea, but the idea stuck.
This exhibition is the cumulation of a two-year dialogue and exchange between Luke Dowd and Adam Holmes-Davies. Recording their lives and experiences of making art, a publication entitled Dear Luke, Dear Adam will be available at Kingsgate Project Space.
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Luke Dowd b.1970, New York City. Lives London, UK. MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design, 2002. BA Liberal Arts, Sarah Lawrence College 1993.
Solo exhibitions: Best Wishes, Warm Regards, Many Thanks!, Recent Activity, Birmingham, 2018. Sobering Gallery, Paris (with Alexandra Hopf), 2016. my shoes, my stove, my life, Zhulong Gallery, Dallas, 2015. the announcement, Tim Sheward Projects, London, 2013. Inauthentics, Galerie Jeanrochdard, Paris, 2012. The constellation comes to life in your void, Klaus Benden Galerie, Cologne, 2012. America hurts me too, Rod Barton Gallery, London, 2011. Happy Happy Sad Sad, Tony Wight Gallery, Chicago, 2009. In the manner of the beast, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York, 2009. Sensibility Is Not Enough, Galerie Jacky Strenz, Frankfurt, 2008. The Mad Determination of Language to Carry On, HOTEL, London, 2007. Life Without Work, Whitechapel Project Space, London (two person show with Giles Round), 2006. The Gem Collection, The Breeder, Athens, 2004. things to do with words, HOTEL, London, 2004.
Adam Holmes-Davies b. 1973, Croydon, UK. Lives London, UK.
Adam Holmes-Davies earned a BA (hons) from Surrey Institute of Art and Design in 1996. After spending several years traveling across Eastern Europe and North America, he enrolled at Chelsea College of Art and Design achieving an MA in Fine Art in 2006.
Adam Holmes-Davies makes abstract paintings that are developed through a lengthy process of layering and scraping paint away. Holmes-Davies is interested in how paintings are made when a painter has no implicit sense of place or tradition for themselves (to be referred to or continued) and how painting (verb and noun) carries decisions into a picture. Holmes-Davies work explores how narratives can be developed in an artwork that touch upon specific personal events while interweaving broader events and histories existing in the world.
Holmes-Davies has exhibited nationally and internationally and was selected by Michael Landy, Nigel Cooke and Curator Linda Norden for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2007. In 2012 he was the Painting Category Winner for the Salon Art Prize, London, UK and second prize-winner for the Barbican Arts Trust Open. Holmes-Davies has been the recipient of the Eaton fund in 2018 and awarded an Arts Council England, Developing your Creative Practice grant in 2020.
