Narbi Price: This Must Be the Place

Narbi Price’s work involves journeys to specific places that have witnessed a range of events – variously historical, famous, personal or forgotten. He researches the precise location of a chosen event, ranging from significant moments in music, film and TV, whimsical acts through to places of violence and death amongst others. Working from photographs taken at the site, he makes paintings in the studio focussing on the abstract, formal and painterly qualities of the resultant images.

This process removes the conscious choice of subject matter; he must work with whatever is present at the spot. Whilst clearly photographically derived, the paintings use the language of abstraction to simultaneously acknowledge and disrupt the representational image. The paint is transparent, opaque, glossy, matt, dilute and impasted, often within the same work.

As viewers, we are not immediately made aware of the specific histories of the sites and are given space to wonder about the multiplicities of events that might have taken place, an effect heightened by the painting method. Our experience of the work shifts as we become aware of the provenance of the depicted sites.

The exhibition sees the launch of a suite of original lithographs made in collaboration with Newcastle-based Master Printer Hole Editions. The prints feature roadside floral memorials. Stripped of their original contexts, these totemic tributes become poignant acknowledgements of lost lives and loves. ‘This Must Be the Place’ will be accompanied by a critical essay by curator Matthew Hearn.