Idris Khan

Drawing on a diverse range of sources, including literature, history, art, music and religion, Idris Khan has developed a unique narrative involving densely layered imagery that inhabits the space between abstraction and figuration and that speaks to the themes of history, cumulative experience and the metaphysical collapse of time into single moments. Working in a wide range of media, such as sculpture, photography and unique oil drawings, Khan’s interests in history and culture are the building blocks for his art, as he layers original images over each other to make a single work that reveals the texture and delicacy of the subject.

For the Sutcliffe exhibition, Khan will exhibit a new drawing called Hallelujah, I Love Her So. He rhythmically hand stamps the lyrics from The Beatles’ song (which is one of three songs on which Sutcliffe was recorded) over and over again creating a spiral shape that seems to pulsate from the central vortex of the drawing. Offering a commentary on the repetition of lyrics that are overplayed again and again can take one out of the physical realm and into the spiritual.