KIERA BENNETT
DAN COOMBS
SAM DARGAN
SEAN DOWER & GUY BAR AMOTZ
LOUISA DUROSE
DAVID KEFFORD

CURATED BY REECE JONES

Sean Dower and Guy Bar Amotz have collaborated periodically since 2001, when they had concurrent exhibitions at W139 Gallery, Amsterdam. For The Hair of the Dog, they have re-staged the 'The Mobile DJ', a performance first presented at Delfina, London in 2005. Re-performed on site, the current work is witnessed through video documentation, alongside the abandoned set and an animated light show, which mirrors the in-film lighting. 'Mobile DJ (2012 remix)' explores the idea of performance artefacts, what happens to a performance when it is no longer 'live' and how it is experienced through myth, nostalgia and supposition.

Sean Dower produces works in sculpture, photography, film, sound and live performance. His works in various media often retain a performative element.

Dower was involved in the UK industrial music scene of the early 1980's and went on to study Sculpture at Camberwell School of Art and Photography and Film at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. He has been exhibiting internationally in galleries, museums and other contexts since the early 1990's.

His work has been presented at: MOMA, New York. Tate Modern, London. Matt’s Gallery, London. Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London and Krinzinger Gallery, Vienna. Recent exhibitions and performances have included: The New Art Gallery Walsall. Tate Britain, London. Netwerk Centre for Contemporary Art (Aalst), Belgium and De La Warr Paviilion, UK.

Guy Bar Amotz graduated from the Bezallel Academy of Art & Design Jerusalem in 1994 before graduating from Goldsmith’s College, London and then participating in the Two Year Residency Programme at the Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Bar-Amotz’s projects have been commissioned by art spaces such as The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Tate Britain, London. CCA, Geneva. Project, Dublin. the Ein-Harod Museum, Israel. The Stedelijk Museum's Bureau, Amsterdam. Kwangju Biennale, South Korea. The Biennale of Sydney 1998. The Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. Saitama Museum of Modern Art, Japan. The Trade Apartment and the APT, London. W139, Amsterdam and Transport for London’s “Platform for Art”.

Kiera Bennett’s paintings always have a diaristic starting point which evolves from drawing and rigorous repeated investigation into an ongoing, reflective narrative. The work is about the power of painting, it’s history, it’s materiality and it’s ability to effectively transform complex thought into form. The paintings in The Hair Of The Dog make reference to the more extreme hedonistic rituals of escapism and the subsequent hangover - the fantasy and the come down.

Past shows include 'New Contemporaries' 2002. The Bloomberg Space, London. John Moores Painting Prize 2004, The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Tokyo Wondersite Gallery, Tokyo. Rockwell Gallery, London. Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, Ireland. She also received The Cocheme Fellowship at Byam Shaw School of Art in 2004.

Dan Coombs constructs his paintings from a complicated collage process, in which he unite the figures with entirely invented surroundings, landscape dream worlds and interior spaces. These are human encounters charged with a mysterious, symbolic power. They are explorations of guilt, beauty and fear of isolation, that draw on myth, religion and psychoanalysis in order to grasp the real within the imaginary.

Exhibitions include The Saatchi Gallery, London. The Fine Art Society, London. Mihai Nicodim, Los Angeles. The Approach, London. City Museum, Prague. 798 Space, Beijing. Bloomberg Space, London. Le Consortium, Dijon and the Lyon Biennale.

David Kefford uses an expansive and evolving visual language to make his work, which manifests through drawing, collage, assemblage, film and installation. It is often temporal, un-monumental and made in connection to and with his body. Occasionally site specific, often anthropomorphic and empathetic it deals with materiality, but ultimately with suggestion, manipulation and relationships.

Kefford is a co founder and director of Aid and Abet, Cambridge. Solo and group shows include Kings Lynn Arts Centre. Rugby Art Gallery and Museum. Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire. 1 000 000 mph, London. Derby Museum and Art Gallery, The National Centre for Contemporary Art, St Petersburg. Sugar, New York. The Sainsbury Centre, Norwich. Aspex, Portsmouth. Rockwell, London. One In The Other, London...

Often, Louisa Durose’s paintings are populated with characters who are grappling with their own comprehension, wonderment or bafflement. An awe at odds with the apparent ubiquity of their surroundings - underground car parks, community halls, schoolrooms and museums. These places all have a quiet mystery, hidden clues and uneasy cultural juxtapositions.

For The Hair Of The Dog, Durose has presented a new series of watercolours - devoid of these characters but depicting the types of spaces that have played host to revelry. We are invited to make our own conclusions as to the social archaeology of recent events.

Durose is featured currently in ‘400 Women’ which is touring extensively across Europe. She was the joint winner of The Mostyn Open in 2011. Exhibitions include Leicester City Gallery. Trade Apartment, London. Lyon Biennale. Crimestown, London. and Frieze Art Fair Projects, Brina Thurston, London...

In his recent solo show at Rokeby Gallery, London, Sam Dargan presented ambitiously rendered scenes incorporating specific historical events. Re-imagined by the artist, these important political moments were relegated to the distant background of the painting or completely unseen, referenced only in the title of the work and muffled by a quiet ‘romantic sublime’.

The body of work featured in The Hair Of The Dog expresses an alienation and dissatisfaction experienced in contemporary daily life. Isolated middle-income men are depicted in stark and often sinister environments; empty interiors illuminated by a solitary lamp, windswept landscapes, dirty streets, the walls daubed with political graffiti or scenes that recall imagery seen in daily newspapers and in political and historical biographies.

Dargan’s work has been shown at Rokeby, London. Theodor Art, New York. Chapter, Cardiff. South London Gallery. Collective Gallery, Edinburgh. Transition Gallery, London. Mogadishni, Denmark. Rockwell, London. The John Moore’s 2008, Walker, Liverpool and he was the winner of the 6th Mostyn Open in 2006.

The Hair Of The Dog’s curator Reece Jones is an artist whose work has shown extensively in the U.K. and internationally, with recent solo shows at Triumph gallery, Moscow and All Visual Arts, London. He was one of the founding members / curators of the Rockwell project space in Hackney and is a lecturer in Fine Art - Painting at City & Guilds of London Art School.