Follies: Jack Hadley and Glenn Otto

Laree Payne is pleased to introduce Follies, an exhibition of new works by Jack Hadley and Glenn Otto. Good friends, Jack and Glenn have worked and exhibited together regularly over the last decade. This way of working closely began at art school when they founded the fashion label PAULINE, along with Michael Lee.

Decorative and often functionless, a folly is an ornamental building within a garden, traditionally a romantic amalgamation of architectural styles and elements. Here, the exhibition title is a whistle to the Hamilton Gardens, with the stage-set-like architectural pavilions being the starting point from which the exhibition has been developed.

Informed by the languages of architecture, the decorative arts, interior design and theatre sets, Jack inserts furniture and small scale sculptures into the gallery space, whilst Glenn brings an audience in the form of drawings-cum-paintings on canvas and directly on the gallery wall.

Jack’s works within the exhibition operate within a dense network of allusion and reference, drawing upon the American architect Robert Venturi and his predilection for complexity, contradiction, ambiguity and rich histories. Venturi states “I like elements that are hybrid rather than ‘pure’, compromising rather than ‘clean’, distorted rather than ‘straightforward’, ambiguous rather than ‘articulated’, perverse as well as impersonal, boring as well as ‘interesting’” (Venturi, 1966). Overlooking a preschool, Jack’s studio windows frame the children’s playground. Colours and forms from the equipment have made their way into the work, and sit tight whilst simultaneously alluding to the likes of Donald Judd, Gerrit Reitveld and Louis Kahn.