During his recovery from a serious illness last year Mike Silva started to make two series of paintings, separate but connected by the artist as the central player. Following his brush with mortality he began to look through old photographs of his lovers, which became the subjects for portraits. He also started to make paintings of his immediate surroundings, banal interiors, paintings almost of nothing in particular. Nothing in particular to us, the viewer but very particular to the artist. These are paintings of his bathroom, his kitchen table, his coffee pot, his studio window. Or, more particularly, the light hitting his coffee pot, or filtering through his t-shirt, hung to dry in front of his studio window. These are quietly celebratory paintings. Paintings of love, light, time, memory, place. I have loved these men. I am here. The light coming through my bathroom window is beautiful today. I am alive. Like a contemporary Hammershøi enjoying dust motes floating in the sunlight.
Mike Silva, born Sweden 1970. Lives and works in London. Mike Silva graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1994 and was included in the 1995 New Contemporaries. Silva has held one person shows at The Charlie Dutton Gallery, London, Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin (2001/2000), Anthony Wilkinson Gallery, London (2004/2002/1998/1995), Galeri Bouhlou, Norway (2002), Stephen Friedman Gallery, London (1996) and has been included in a number of group shows including Lombard Freid, New York, Barbara Gillman Gallery, Miami and Victoria Miro Gallery, London. His work is in a number of collections including: British Council, British Airways, Government Art Collection, Simmons & Simmons and the Saatchi Collection.

Opening : Friday February 17 17.00 - 20.00

mpefm DENMARK art press release

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