DAYS LIKE THESE
1 May - 3 June 2023

Nick Goss, France-Lise McGurn and Clare Woods

DE LEÓN is pleased to present the work of three painters, Nick Goss, France-Lise McGurn and Clare Woods.

All three artists share a passion for the materiality of paint, drawing upon their imaginations to create immersive, figurative works, often inspired by found sources and personal experiences. The title, Days Like These, reflects both our individual everyday experiences, as well as the turmoil and fragility of our era. It implies not only a state of mind, but also a state of being. Much of what each artist shows is intimate, exhibiting a reverence for the ordinary and everyday yet imbued with topics that are shaping contemporary society such as the climate emergency, the environment, health and well-being, as well as gender, sexuality and identity.

Nick Goss constructs his paintings using sources such as newspaper articles, documentary photographs, images from old books as well as his own memories, to layer the past with the present. Goss says ‘most of the works tend to start from an observed moment, but quickly drift into other territories and I hope ask questions about what is real and what is imagined.’ Goss created Captain’s Table, (2022) shown in the gallery, after staying on an oil tanker as part of a unique artists residency programme. It is based on the aftermath of a meeting between the captain of the oil tanker and the harbour master outside the port of Syracuse, Sicily. Within the painting Goss creates small shifts in focus as well as collaging certain areas with silkscreen printing to create a second reality. For example, the plate in the foreground is derived from an image from a book of undersea photographs, its dark indigo interior pulling us through the surface of the water to the depths below. ‘Everyday life collides with something completely outside of itself’ Goss says, ‘the loose concept is to play with an idea of collapsing time and space in these works, to have abrupt changes in language that symbolise different realities colliding together.’ Cyclist (2018) draws upon an image of the desperate exodus in the Netherlands from the 1953 North Sea flood blended with the streets around the artist’s studio in east London.

Clare Woods will debut a new suite of paintings, made specifically for this exhibition. Her early practice as a sculptor continues to inform her exploration of physical form which she captures as a two-dimensional image via the materiality of paint. Unusually she works in oil paint on horizontal sheets of aluminium. Woods describes her painting process as very physical using strong brushstrokes which she applies quickly and instinctively. Formally these beguiling works are rich in colour and texture but explore below the surface and you discover that what she is expressing is something far deeper - the transmission of a psychological and emotional state. The titles of her works play an important role in giving added meaning to what we are looking at. Through carefully selected names, the artist offers viewers alternative perspectives and interpretations of her paintings as seen here in The Sleep Walker (2023). Woods says, referring to its title, ‘the phenomenon of sleep walking is acting as if awake while asleep - caught between two poles of life and death’.
Much of Woods’ recent work is concerned with fragility, vulnerability and our own mortality. In The Sleep Walker we encounter a still life painting of a vase of cut flowers on the cusp of wilting possibly acting as a memento mori to remind us of the transience of life.

France-Lise McGurn has also made a new group of paintings for this exhibition. She is fascinated by the human form, depicting the body in a unique way. She paints overlapping figures, combined with colour, to suggest ‘a feeling or rhythm’. Her work explores contemporary issues surrounding gender, sexuality, society and politics. She uses the acrylic medium along with spray paint and marker pen to produce fluid and lithe figures, both female and male, that flow across the canvas. And it is through this fluidity that she expresses, like Woods, the ephemeral and transitory nature of life.
After finishing her degree McGurn spent 3 months in Florence surrounded by Greek and Roman imagery and we can see how this may have informed her work – the faces looking out at us from the canvas often reflect upon an idealised notion of classical beauty, while the bare backgrounds of her canvases give a sense of weightlessness and abandonment to her compositions.

The show will be accompanied by music from Nick Goss’ and Jim Wallis’ album Pool.

Nick Goss (b. 1981, Bristol, UK)
Solo exhibitions include: The Undercurrents at Matthew Brown, Los Angeles, USA (2022); Mud Angels, Thelma Hubert, Devon, UK; Margaritas at the Mall, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, Germany (2021); Nine Mile Burn, Josh Lilley Gallery, London, UK (2020); Morley’s Mirror, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, UK (2019).
Goss’ work is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA; Dallas Museum of Art, USA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, USA; the Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK; Pallant House, Chichester, UK.

Nick Goss is represented by Josh Lilley Gallery, London, UK, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, Germany and Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, UK.

France-Lise McGurn (b. 1983, Glasgow, UK)
Solo exhibitions and commissions include: Aloud, The Exposé, Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK (2022); Skypark, Djanogly Café permanent commission, Tate Britain, London, UK (2022); Aloud, commission for Glasgow International, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, UK (2021); Percussia, Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK (2020); In Emotia, Tramway, Glasgow, UK; Bodytronic, Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel, Switzerland; Art Now: France-Lise McGurn, Sleepless, Tate Britain, London, UK (2019); 0141, Frutta Gallery, Glasgow, UK (2018); Artist in Residence Stairwell Commission, Tate St. Ives, Cornwall, UK (2017).
McGurn’s work is held in the collections of K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong; Stiftung Kunsthaus-Sammlung Pasquart, Biel, Switzerland; David Roberts Collection, London, UK; New Hall Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK; Tate, London, UK; Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK; Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, UK; Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), Glasgow, UK; Hill Art Foundation, New York, USA; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas, USA.

France-Lise McGurn is represented by Simon Lee Gallery, London.

Clare Woods RA (b. 1972, Southampton, UK)
Solo exhibitions include: Between These Words, Simon Lee Gallery, Hong Kong (2022); Between Before and After, Serlachius Museums, Mänttä, Finland; After Limbo, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, USA; If Not Now Then When, Buchmann Galerie, Berlin, Germany (2020); Password Revolt, Simon Lee Gallery, New York, USA (2019); Doublethink, Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK (2019).
Woods’ work is in many collections including: Arken Museum of Modern Art, Ishøj, Denmark; The Dakis Joannou Collection Foundation, Athens, Greece; Honart Museum, Tehran Colección, Iran; VAC (Valencia Arte Contemporáneo), Spain; Ophiuchus Collection, Geneva, Switzerland; Arts Council Collection, London, UK; Government Art Collection, London, UK; Harewood House, Leeds, UK; Mead Gallery, Warwick University, Warwick, UK; Nuffield College Collection, Oxford, UK; National Collection of Wales, Cardiff, UK; Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK; Southampton City Art Gallery, Southampton, UK; The British Council Collection, London, UK; The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, UK; The Hiscox Collection, London, UK; The National Museum, Cardiff, UK; Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, USA.

Clare Woods is represented by Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK, Buchmann Galerie, Berlin, Germany and Martin Asbaek Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark.