Friday 29 April – Sunday 1 May 2022
Preview and Vernissage on Thursday 28 April 2022

We are thrilled to announce the gallery’s inclusion in the DISCOVERY section of Art Brussels 2022 – the first fair participation for the gallery since its inaugural exhibition in November 2020.

‘Art Brussels is delighted to announce its 38th edition. The fair makes its long awaited in-person return from Thursday 28 April to Sunday 1 May 2022 with a strong and international line up and a unique mix of established artists and emerging talent. For the 2022 edition, Art Brussels continues to be highly curated and more appealing than ever. 156 galleries from 26 countries are presented across the fair’s four sections: 103 in PRIME, 41 in DISCOVERY, 7 in REDISCOVERY and 5 in INVITED, as well as 34 presentations in the fair’s SOLO sub-section.’  (Art Brussels)

We will show new works in a duo presentation of James Collins and Daniel Graham Loxton. Both artists have been subject of separate solo exhibitions at the gallery in 2021 and their painting practices stand in an interesting dialogue to each other.

‘The thick ravines of paint in James Collins’s deceptively colourful black paintings seem to be hacked into with primitive hand tools – imagine stretcher bars exposed to form a handle, the corner of a painting as a simple trowel. Once complete, it seems a spade would be necessary to insert the paintings into their steel tray frames. Critic and curator Sacha Craddock wrote about his recent show at the gallery that “the observer can be thrown into questioning whether the relationship to the work is of one-to-one physicality or about looking from far away; ‘is it a lake or a puddle, a sea or splodge?’, but such insecurity about scale is part of a wider question as to who we are and whether we are all able to start in the same place?” This is the monumental heft and earthen density which characterises the paintings of James Collins.

If the black paintings mimic the innate intelligence of primordial earth, Daniel Graham Loxton’s are the wandering brains which have sprung forth from it. Conceptually, but also in scale and materiality, Loxton’s works could be the very tools used to scrape and gouge the surface of James Collins’s large scale paintings. If you look at their edges it is clear these paintings have been handled, turned, left for periods of time, reconsidered and revisited. He has casually collaged these moments into the surface, and upon consideration, a stew of self-referential and historical details, painterly attitudes and movements appear for the artist (and viewer) to ponder. Artist and essayist, Myles Starr states in his recent text, “Loxton’s unnamed protagonist seems to try to escape painting, skipping around the gulfs that separate it from drawing, collage, assemblage, and sculpture. The search yields no exit but new ways of painting that build upon the legacies of Abstraction and Conceptualism.” Jewel-like and modest in scale, Loxton’s paintings bring along with them a buoyant white halo of gallery wall, a moment to breathe before plunging back into the dense mysterious rhythms of undulating darkness.’

James Collins (born 1992 in UK) graduated with BA (Hons) from Wimbledon College of Art, London, in 2015 and Master of Arts (MA) from Royal College of Art, London, in 2017. Collins was included in the Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2015 and the John Moore Painting Prize in 2016. Selected group exhibitions were ‘Lost & Found’ at Rod Barton in London (2017), ‘Duo’ at Galleri Jacob Bjørn in Aarhus, Denmark (2018) and, more recently, ‘Abstract with Figure’ at James Fuentes, New York City (2020) and ‘Hideaway’ at Monti8 in Latina, Italy (2021). ‘Penumbra’ at Claas Reiss in May 2021 was his first solo show, followed by ‘Occultation’ at CAR DRDE in Bologna, Italy, in October 2021. ‘Alte Freunde, neue Freunde’ at the end of 2021 was Collins’ second cooperation with Claas Reiss. He lives and works in Darlington, UK.

Daniel Graham Loxton (born 1987 in USA) graduated with a BFA in Film & Video from the School of Visual Arts (NYC) in 2009. He has shown widely in New York at JDJ Projects, 57W57 Arts, and Wild Embeddings, among others. In spring 2021 Loxton had a solo show ‘Pillow for Dürer’ at Jir Sandel in Copenhagen, Denmark, that included a book of drawings with introduction by Los Angeles-based curator Chris Sharp. He is also a co-founder of Uffizi, a project space in New York, and has regularly curated exhibitions around the US. Loxton lives and works in Cold Spring, NY, USA. ‘The Patron Saint of Turning’ at Claas Reiss’ Projektraum London in September 2021 was Loxton’s first show in the UK and Art Brussels 2022 is the artist’s second cooperation with the gallery.

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Claas Reiss is a contemporary art gallery opened in October 2020 with over 1,250 sqf exhibition space in a central London location. The gallery was established with the aim of developing a high quality programme dedicated to ’new voices’ in international contemporary painting. Claas Reiss is also the initiator of ‘Projektraum London’, a project space situated on the lower level of the gallery.

For further information please visit www.claasreiss.com, email info@claasreiss.com or call +44 7769 566 922.

Claas Reiss – Art Brussels 2022 preview