João Penalva

Simon Lee Gallery is proud to announce a solo exhibition of new work by the London–based Portuguese artist, João Penalva, his third with the gallery. While he works across many media, photography is central to Penalva’s practice. At the core of his use of the medium is the ambiguity of its relationship to fact and fiction. Often shown accompanied by narrative text, Penalva’s photograph, slide and film installations suggest themselves as documentary, but jarring notes or a fictional tone offer other potential readings. This uncertainty seems to question the very possibility of the photograph to act as an independent or impartial document. One major new series of works in the exhibition consists of large scale photographs of London pavements taken at points along the artist’s daily routes between home and studio, printed onto linen and mounted on aluminium. No less formal compositions for being readymade, like all of Penalva’s photographs...