Jake’s recent work is born from an interest in Marc Auge’s analysis of modern life, especially around the notion of non-places, described by Auge as places in which we spend a lot of our time participating in travel, communication and consumption. With his growing curiosity in non-places the artist is intrigued by spaces in which we inhabit on a temporary timescale, especially those sat on the boarder between the public and the private, that can often be associated with leisure and luxury. He aims to document and provide a spotlight for theses places that are often overlooked in today’s fast paced society to help us think more about our surroundings and how we interact with them.
Public spaces such as shopping centres, office blocks, hotel receptions and bathhouses have become the focal point for Jake’s more recent work, aiming to provide those spaces that frequently go unnoticed with their moment of glory.
For the past year, Jake has been solely working on a collection of paintings based on the Harrogate Turkish Baths and spa, capturing the intimate and ritualistic spaces guests use to indulge in luxury relaxation. The five Harrogate Turkish Baths and Spa paintings presented in this show, devoid of the human figure, focus on the beauty of interior architecture, design and out relationship to space and place whilst also playing with notion of voyeurism.
The artist’s solo show will open at Thought Foundation on Thursday 30 April (private view Wednesday 29 April) and will run until Friday 10 July 2020.
