Josh Lilley is pleased to announce the opening of Falling into Positions, the second solo exhibition at the gallery by Sarah Dwyer.

Dwyer's works evolve through a natural process of improvisation and spontaneity. She works quickly, building up layered interpretations, veiling previous directions, constantly revising her canvases as an entire composition - in order to create dynamic works that represent a continued study of the subconscious. At times drawing on the canvas, she pulls together inchoate shapes and ambiguous forms, to give a presence to something suggestive but unknown.

Elements of Irish poetry spill onto Dwyer's canvases. Her mark-making echoes the flow of action writing, a painterly parallel to James Joyce's stream of consciousness passages. His poetry — full of suggestion and ambiguity — reflects the hybrid forms within Dwyer's paintings, full of experimentation and lyricism. Dwyer builds on allusions and free associations, bringing a certain unpredictability to her painting.

Although her work is impulsive and momentary, it is unavoidably historical, imbued with reference to paintings past. Just as Joyce's works are built upon the understanding of historical literature and poetry, Dwyer self-consciously shadows historical painting. She builds on Arshile Gorky's ability, for example, to describe ambiguous floating shapes in an indeterminable ground, dragging them away from the figurative — an autonomous engagement with the physicality of the paint. Multiple styles jostle for primacy in her artistic vocabulary, so that the viewer is kept constantly engaged. The result is dynamic and courageous painting. Bold areas of colour compete for attention and play against each other, wrestling with the brushwork for prominence over form.

Sarah Dwyer (b. 1974, Cork, Ireland) Lives and works in London. Dwyer graduated from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2004, winning The Sheldon Bergh Award. Previous solo exhibitions include Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin, 2011; Hands Stuffing a Mattress, Josh Lilley, London, 2009; and Kybidou Gallery, Tokyo, 2007. Group exhibitions include Fade Away (touring exhibition), Transition Gallery, London, and Gallery North, Newcastle, 2011; Fear, Lo and Behold, Salon de Vortex, Athens, 2011; and Sarah Dwyer & Diego Sainz, Godoy, Madrid, Spain, 2007.