Crash Width: CW Landon

JC Gallery is pleased to present 'Crash Width' – a solo show of new works by CW Landon. In this ongoing series, Landon explores the coercive nature of stadium architecture, and its ability to unearth hidden histories trapped within the human body. By focusing on three major UK stadiums - Wembley, Twickenham, and Old Trafford - Landon looks at the collective behaviour of our bodies in tunnels, gates, stands and parades.

What sort of force or threats can a building make on the body? Is a threat to become trapped, imprisoned or buried? Pressed through the carousel of functionality, a visitor to the stadium becomes serialised and interchangeable, moving as if identical with the crowd through these spaces. How the body reacts can become disjoined to what the mind is focused on. This disconnection between the body - forced into considerations of survival, and the minds focus on the entertainment of a spectacle, allows the possibility for a dual narrative.

Working within the philosophical framework of genealogical scepticism, Landon examines our distrust in the notion of a stable or fixed truth and disarticulates the idea of a fixed self. He explores the complexities of a doubly situated self-positioned within the contemporary cultural and social context, while also linked to a past in abeyance, in which hidden biases, vested interests and power dynamics may be in conflict with the current self.

By exploring these architectural and phenomenological spaces using ideas around contact and mark- making, Landon records this experience and documents the ebbs and flows of being a spectator. Collecting moulds from cornices and hand rails within these brutalist spaces, Landon layers these abstractions through processes including maquette making, digital 3D modelling and drawing. Various mark making tools like air brush and oil sticks create an opaqueness to touch, playing with the various exposure to screen based mediums.

Landon approaches the thick concrete walls and restricting passageways of the stadium as story- telling tools, building the idea of a living consciousness that has both the ability to co-opt space for individual expression and coalesce many minds into one mind. In these hive mind states, Landon explores the sway of spectacle, cathartic eruptions and release valves.

In September 2023, we followed the artist CW Landon on one of his explorations and processes to Twickenham Stadium, helping to understand how he makes his paintings. click here TO VIEW THE VIDEO