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From: Richard Caulke for Kesva An Tavas Category: Art Date: 23 May 2008 Time: 08:15 AM Review: The instincts of storytelling emerge throughout much of Jonathan Polkests recent work - certainly in the last ten years, with an eye for "strangeness" in circumstances connected to both an urban wiseblood and a rural neophyte, the division of these two extremes is best exemplified by the inclusion of both the new "Discobohm" and some works connected to life in Cornwall and The Isles of Scilly where Polkest was born. The exhibition is fully installed into the unlikely host of a fairly nice pub in Hammersmith, West London, one or two pieces look as though they are "shoe horned" into place but the effect is of a cumulative narration, a certain otherness - at times awkward at others celebratory, certainly Discobohm celebrates music and clubbing and as Polkest describes ."that first experience in a night club...." The juxtaposition of vehicles point to the Road Movie, the little boats in St.Ives seem obscure unless the viewer is in on Polkests territory of a Cornwall with local bands, alternative writers and performance groups (These Horses in The Double Drummer). The Lizard Bus seems at first psychedelic and therefore an otherness imbued by pharmacy but if that is the case it is a minor consideration to a work that neatly drifts from the bleak roadside of the Lizard Peninsular into an internal world of contemplation best embarked upon as one winds oneself from one tiny village to another aboard the Lizard Truronian Bus from Truro to the Lizard Village. It is rock, Pub Rock it Is Disco too but it Is Disco in a homespun way. A certain weirdness and awkwardness was in his art from the beginning, not only in those pop art or minipop art vehicle images from the 90's (The Opposite of Winter at Candid Arts) but also in the loaded images that looked about to crash into themselves, this was a danger the paintings flirted with, their multiple layers, now stripped back into a more subtle terrain, the use of brocades and pattern embedded as well as applied. Not everything he has done is entirely believable or an unmitigated success, but I don't believe Polkest is capable of making a boring painting. Pub Rock Disco is a succession of flashbacks although much of this work is new , I know that in one studio a lot of his work gets left until it is brought forth for further layering or otherwise the dumpster, often this practice led to a density that hindered the subtle precision we see developing now. Polkest has never been slick or demonstrated that conceptual savvy that marked out his peers at Goldsmiths, too much easy talent can be a curse as much as a gift, it can kill an artist. Awkwardness under pressure can become character, it helps knead an artists influences into an individual voice. Polkest's paintings become really interesting when they free themselves from the reference and narratives that made them, and become something new.This also means going beyond the trademarks and traps of style, leading the artist into uncertain territory.Many painters don't have the guts or the curiosity to let this happen.Polkest has allowed himself the pleasures of arbitrariness, leaving space for the unexpected and the inexplicable. A type of disquiet pervades Jonathan Polkest's newest work. The stories are dissolving, leaving only emptiness and murmurs. Elsewhere, they have a sexual menace that needs no further explanation. There are things happening at the edge of vision but they stay understated and are more troubling for it. The exhibition PUB ROCK DISCO aims to reach a new audience and on the 31st of May the Artist will be present at the Thatched House, 115 Dalling Road, Hammersmith with the Draw Me/ Tedna Ve portraiture Booth and an invitation to come and make free portraits, listen to Augusto Monk's inimitable music, see the the paintings. The main exhibition runs until August 08. http://www.thatchedhouse.com/index.htm http://moonbowjakes.moonfruit.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC3zmJkWptM