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About the artist
KJ Pocock’s work includes painting, drawing, prints and video. Originally from Dorset he studied architecture at Cambridge University. Now based in Manchester he has exhibited across the UK (including the John Moores Painting Prize exhibition) and internationally.
Statement
Originally from Wimborne in Dorset, in the UK, I have been living in Manchester now for many years. I studied architecture at Cambridge University and have exhibited widely in the UK and abroad in the USA, Germany, Italy and Australia. I was included in the 2012 John Moores Painting Prize at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
I develop my ideas through a design process that involves sketches, investigative studies, technical drawings and software. My work is inspired by the built and natural environment, their relationship to each other, our movement between them and my subconscious response to them. It is about the interior and exterior, the physical world we occupy and how each of us looks at this slightly differently, bringing our own feelings, experiences, thoughts and memories.
Both people and buildings present an exterior face to the world whilst having a different interior world. I see parallels between the two and I use this in my work to explore the effect these different environments have on us and how we respond to them - physically, psychologically, knowingly and unknowingly. I express this private, internal world of thoughts usually as a colourful, semi-abstracted exterior space. Themes of power, control, hierarchy, repetition, aggression, the passage of time, transformation and contemplation are also encompassed in the work, alongside my own experiences and interests. I don’t try to force how these elements blend in my work, but let it evolve naturally.