Tom Hardwick-Allan
Low Relief and Foil
6 March—19 April 2025
Low Relief and Foil is Tom Hardwick-Allan’s second solo exhibition at South Parade. The work is a new series of cast-iron reliefs and an installation of concealed books.
If you ask Tom to explain his work, he presents you with, like, word-play. ‘Cause, OK, one example: iron casting is a near-obsolete technology of reproduction, and the show is full of babies.
And then there’s the way he’s riffing on multiple meanings of the word ‘imprinting.’ Here, one meaning is: imprinting is a formal process in iron-casting – you imprint when you press a carved wood ‘pattern’ into petrol-rich sand to leave an impression of the shape of the wood you carved. Another meaning is: imprinting is a developmental phenomenon for humans and for other animals, where an infant forms an intense association with the host that cares for it, and that host impresses upon the innocent infant a set of behavioural patterns which may, perhaps, define its life.
Extract of text by George Lynch - full text can be read here
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Tom Hardwick-Allan (b. 1996, Derbyshire, UK) lives and works in London, UK. He graduated with a BA from the Slade School of Fine Art in London (2019). Hardwick-Allan scratches away at an array of surfaces, treating image making as a digestive process, by which continual revision is a means of staying in dialogue with the work; tracing a range of links between falconry, printmaking, digestion and augury.
Recent solo exhibitions include NADA, South Parade (New York, 2023) and Scrying the Slice, South Parade (London, 2022). Recent selected group exhibitions include White Trash, The White Ermine (Düsseldorf, 2024), TIMESCAPES, Shtager&Shch (London, 2023), Halbe Sachen with Stanislava Kovalcikova, Galerie Khoshbakht (Cologne, 2023) and Elif Saydem | Tom Hardwick-Allan, Lady Helen (Berlin, 2022) and Breathless: London Art Now (curated by Norman Rosenthal), Ca’Pesaro (Venice, 2019).
As a musician, Hardwick-Allan is a member of the bands Gentle Stranger and Shovel Dance Collective. Recent performances have taken place at CCA (Glasgow, 2024), Kunstverein St Gallen with Agnes Scherer (St Gallen, 2024), Roskilde Festival (Roskilde, 2024), Re-Wire Festival (The Hague, 2024), Cafe OTO (London, 2024), Pudel Club (Hamburg, 2024). Selected albums include The Shovel Dance (Shovel Dance Collective, 2024), Inner Winter (Gentle Stranger, 2023), Upon Return (Gentle Stranger, 2022) and Love and Unlearn (Gentle Stranger, 2020).
Recent artist books/publications include After the Numbers, Before the Numbness, South Parade (London, 2023), Catching the First Mute Sliced in the Morning, South Parade, (NADA, New York 2022), Studio Log, South Parade (London, 2022) and Vogel, Weinspach (Cologne, 2021).
PERFORMANCE: Tom Hardwick-Allan and Friends
Frieze Review: Tom Hardwick-Allan Lays the Past to Rest
Tom Hardwick-Allan, Secrets of The Fruitfly, 2025. Books, glassine, oil, graphite, foil, dimensions variable
Tom Hardwick-Allan, Secrets of The Fruitfly, 2025. Books, glassine, oil, graphite, foil, dimensions variable
Tom Hardwick-Allan, Lamb < City, 2025. Cast iron, graphite, 178 (H) x 173 (W) x 4 (D) cm
Tom Hardwick-Allan, Fetus < Falcon, 2025. Cast iron, graphite, 110 (H) x 160 (W) x 3.5 (D) cm
Tom Hardwick-Allan, Hare < Stairs, 2025. Cast iron, graphite, 131 (H) x 50 (W) x 4 (D) cm
Tom Hardwick-Allan, U < O, 2025. Cast iron, graphite, 12.5 (H) x 50 (W) x 3.5 (D) cm
Tom Hardwick-Allan, X, 2025. Cast iron, graphite, 163 (H) x 106 (W) x 3.5 (D) cm
Tom Hardwick-Allan, Y, 2025. Cast iron, graphite, 163 (H) x 67 (W) x 3.5 (D) cm
Tom Hardwick-Allan, Low Relief and Foil, 2025. Screen print on glassine, 50 (H) x 75 (W) cm
