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Jerome Zodo gallery London is proud to announce You Were Never Really There, the first solo-exhibition by renowned American artist Terry Rodgers in England. The exhibition will open on Thursday the 27th of September and will be open to the public until the 30th of November. Rodgers has made a name for himself as a virtuoso painter of large-scale, cinematic depictions of bodies in search of connection. His instantly recognizable style has been rewarded with museum and gallery exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States, as well as collaborations with high-end brands like Lalique and even a feature in HBO's True detective. This exhibition will feature a selection of recent works, including several pieces made especially for this occasion. A limited edition catalogue will be published by the gallery to introduce his work to the British public. The artist will be present during the opening.

Rodgers excels at painting excess. His canvasses celebrate the surface as much as they hint at what simmers underneath. Golden candelabras, glasses of champagne, silk and rich upholstery form the backdrop for a group of gorgeous lost souls. These figures tend to have a floating presence, as if they are caught an existential stasis. Their skin is shiny to the point of being translucent, their gaze is pointed down or outwards. Some blushingly stumble through a drunken daze while others try to strike a nonchalant pose. Together, they represent a contemporary experience of social structures. Through painting the body in a cage of luxury, Rodgers has found a striking metaphor for the series of disconnects that can occur between body, mind and the other. In his most recent work, he seems to have put an emphasis on these mental and physical gaps by highlighting edges and focusing on transparencies. By combining intimate body politics with jet-set aesthetics, he shows imagined spaces where capitalist fantasy meets a deeply human reality.

Using a nearly photo-realistic style of painting, Rodgers creates a sense of unity where there is none. The figures in his paintings were never in the same room together, and their setting is in fact a collage of several architectural elements painted on the same surface. Space is flattened and elements are arranged in two-dimensional layers similar to those used in image editing software. Throughout the years, Terry Rodgers has photographed a plethora of models and settings. He collects these images in a vast digital database. All his compositions are arranged by combining elements from this collection. In the scale-less, vector-based playground of his software, he can create dynamic, complex compositions that flow together into one imaginary space once painted.

Terry Rodgers (1947, Newark, New Jersey) lives and works in Columbus, Ohio. His work is represented by Aeroplastics in Brussels, Belgium and TORCH Gallery in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Recent exhibitions include: The American Dream, Kunsthalle Emden, Germany & Drents Museum, the Netherlands, Prism - When Lalique crystal meets contemporary art, Lalique Museum, France, Approximations, Galleria PACK, Milan, Italy, Proof of Life, Weserburg Museum, Bremen, Germany and Purifications / Shadow of Delight, Aeroplastics, Brussels, Belgium. His work can be found in several private and institutional collections worldwide including.

Terry Rodgers is an internationally recognized artist who has worked and lived iin Washington,DC, Massachusetts, and Ohio. Rodgers’ current work focuses on portraying contemporary body politics. His rendering of an imaginary leisure life stands as an iconic vision of the tensions and confusions endemic to today’s society. These images are not snapshots or slices of life, but rather a compression and dissection of our rampant imaginations and mediated influences. The seductive and marvelous glamour of the outer world jars against the vulnerability and delicacy of our inner and private selves.

Rodgers’ first solo European museum exhibition opened May 2009. His work has also been represented in numerous museum group exhibitions. In 2007, his work appeared for the first time in Art Basel. And in 2005, three of his monumental figurative canvases were presented at the Bienal de Valencia. In the United States, he has had solo gallery exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Chicago; and in Europe in Brussels, Amsterdam, Zurich, and Milan. European Musea exhibiting his work include the Stedelijk Museum-Hertogenbosch, the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung in Munich, the Museum Franz Gertsch in Burgdorf, the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Kasteel van Gaasbeek in Belgium, the Scheringa Museum of Realist Art in the Netherlands, the Kunsthal Rotterdam, the Kunstalle Krems in Austria, Kunsthalle Emden in Germany, Kunstmuseum Bern and Zentrum Paul Klee in Switzerland, me Berlin, Kunstverein Heppenheim in Germany, and the Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague.

Several books about his work have been published including: Terry Rodgers — Dimensions of Ambiguity, Terry Rodgers — The Apotheosis of Pleasure, and Vectors of Desire. His work has appeared in many museum catalogues, and Rodgers has been featured in numerous publications in America and abroad including Die Welt, Art in America, Citizen K, German GQ, Kunstbeeld, Arte, Die Zeit, NRC Handelsblad, Numero, Zoo, Le Vife, Joia Magazine, Elle and FLAUNT to name a few. His works can also be followed widely in blogs internationally.