Zavier Ellis is mounting a new solo exhibition ‘Type 1 Zealotry’ at Mark Hix’s Cock ‘n’ Bull Gallery in Shorditch. Ellis is a local gallerist, curator and artist. As Director of CHARLIE SMITH LONDON and co-founder of THE FUTURE CAN WAIT, Ellis combines three roles, each feeding into the other. His perception of what is creatively vital and new, which informs the choices he makes as a gallerist is also the driving force of his own practice as an artist.
More specifically, his work combines a fascination with graffiti with an equal fascination with the esoteric. This, in turn, acts as a reminder that the graffiti we casually encounter in the street are themselves often part of a secret language of signs, revealing their real meanings only to the informed and initiated.
“Rather than street art I would claim a fascination with the street itself, or the urban environment / the city… My eyes are drawn to signing writing, posters, old faded advertisements painted directly on to brickwork, roughly drawn graffiti, street markings. These elements form part of a battle to render something permanent from the fleeting and ephemeral.” Zavier Ellis
For this exhibition, Ellis has produced a monumental 2 by 3 meter painting, along with a suite of pencil drawings and collages. His work acknowledges Modernists such as Schwitters, Tapiès and Robert Rauschenberg and he also cites the impact made on him by the photography of Brassaï.
Ellis sees his output as being the product of research as much as what he sees around him in the contemporary urban context. There are references that are overt, others that are deliberately hidden – to religion, to occult beliefs, to insanity (and the links between these three topics). Often he makes use of quite elaborate symbolic language(s) in the plural. Not just the use of verbal codes but also of coded colour, and of codes based on measurements, based on the width of the lettering that appears so frequently and prominently in these compositions.
The work shown here offers a deeply serious contribution to our analysis of urban living – the mysterious life of the city that surrounds us. At the same time, it is often replete with ironic humour. This is a body of work in step with the overall spirit of Cock ‘n’ Bull gallery. During the exhibition, Cock ‘n’ Bull Gallery will be hosting a HIX LIX art dinner. Diners will feast in the gallery, enjoying a bespoke menu which has been designed to encapsulate the apocalyptic nature of the show.
Image: Zavier Ellis ‘The End of Days’, 2014 Liquitex acrylic, spray paint, oil, tape, collage on board 200x300cm