LONDON.- Second Hand is an exhibition of all new works by British artist Luke Caulfield, showing for the first time at Lazarides Rathbone from the 13th July 2012.

The artist’s latest series embraces the failure of historical documentation to relay the elusive experience of an object or event in its own time and place. Focusing on neon light works from the twentieth century, Bernini sculpture and the Mafia bombs that destroyed cultural targets in 1993, Caulfield reflects upon an anxiety to preserve the past, an anxiety to memorialize; instincts that seem to fight against the flow of time.

The synergy between Caulfield’s inspiration, perception and artistic portrayal is succinct throughout his body of work, both consciously and sub-consciously. His paintings play with and break a linear narrative and time structure. Much of the work is filtered through unconventional digital processes (2D and 3D), which allow digital "flaws" to add to the fallible texture of the documentation.

The documentation may be flawed as a realistic mode of documentation but we are asked to question whether the documentation of the original event or artwork maybe in itself art or not. There is an ambiguity as to whether the documented work is more valued and valid than the means of documentation. Through these works, the artist welcomes the viewer into his thought provoking and collaborative world and explores historical events, which may or may not be arbitrary, and how they are communicated through the course of time.

Within this exhibition, there is a thread that has always pervaded Luke Caulfield’s work: an attempt to deal with the sensation that the present has already passed, questioning the nature of how the present is recorded, the history of which is already in the making…

Born in London in 1969, Caulfield is presently living between London and Madrid. Caulfield studied Classics and Drama at University of London, 1988-91 and fine art at Kensington & Chelsea, London, 1995-6 and The Slade, London, 1996-2000. Shows include Milton Keynes Gallery 2002, Bloomberg Space London 2002, Laing Art Gallery Newcastle 2010, Cornerhouse Gallery Manchester 2002, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art Sunderland 2004, Kelvingrove Museum Glasgow 2002, One in the Other Gallery 2006-8, Laurent Delaye Gallery 2002, and shows in Japan, S. Korea, Morocco, Norway, Switzerland, France and Italy. Competitions include John Moores 21 1999, Mostyn Open 12 2002, Natwest Art Prize 1998 , AIR residency Norway 2004, Cocheme Fellowship Central Saint Martins 2003, British School at Rome Abbey Fellowship 2009 .