Orpheus Street Paintings

A Disappearing Moment in Painting

For one night only, TM Gallery will play host to the enigmatic, intimate, ephemeral work of Nelson Diplexcito (b. 1966) to celebrate the launch of the first monograph of the artist’s work, The Orpheus Street Paintings.

The exhibition presents the unique opportunity to experience the development Diplexcito’s painting practice, focusing on the past nine years working in his South London Studio on the eponymous Orpheus Street. This body of work will be brought together for the first time with six new works that he is revealing at the exhibition.

Diplexcito will be present to speak about his work and sign copies of the newly published monograph. The book beautifully encapsulates Diplexcito’s painting in fifty-eight pages photographed by Brad Gilbert, and includes an exclusive interview with emerging painter and ceramic artist Jungwon Jay Hur.

About Nelson Diplexcito’s practice

Illustrating the fleetingness of time and memory, Diplexcito’s paintings reveal a narrative that is both mysterious and deeply intimate. A woman’s sidelong glance, a child’s shadow, a passing landscape as seen from the carriage of a train; each one expands the poetic bounds of painting. Suspended infinitely in time, Diplexcito challenges the impermanence of these moments and allows us to share in the honest intimacy of each one.

Working across mediums, Diplexcito’s process begins with a photograph. “This is where painting begins for me, with an image that has the thinness of an apparition. The photographs that I use must have the thinness of ghosts in order that they can be developed into drawings and then paintings.” Building layer upon layer, Diplexcito explores the realm of memory as it transforms and transcends the limits of time.

The artist’s ephemeral craft of light invites the viewer to step within the frame of the painting in pursuit what is unseen. “It is as if the painting is hidden somewhere beneath the surface of the painting. The object is to call it out into the open, in short to make it visible.” Inextricably intertwined, we are left with the sensation of a lingering presence even as we walk away.