Market Cafe

Location

Country: UK
City: England
Place: Manchester, DCMS Hub

Zoë Carlon is interested in experiences of solitude, and the spaces and circumstances where this can be experienced in our hyperconnected world. Working from her own photographs of places or scenes, she develops compositions with no narrative action or people yet that convey a sense of being in that space. Her use of particular viewpoints or manipulated perspectives create a lack of resolution as to what the place is and where we see it from. Market Cafe presents us with a familiar looking cafe scene, complete with checked tablecloths and cheap and cheerful chairs. The patterns in the background appear to be lengths of hanging fabric and we are aware that there must be a story to explain what they are and why they are there. The lengths of fabric, along with the reflection we see on the glass window suggest that the space is one where activity has happened or is happening and there are things we are not able to see or fully understand outside the scene we are privy to. We see the cafe from a particular vantage point that leaves us with a sense of removal from the activity that surrounds the scene being depicted – an experience of solitude.

Zoë Carlon was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire. She graduated with a BFA from Leeds University in 2017 and went on for further studies to the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. Solo exhibitions of her work have been held by her gallery South Parade in Mexico City (2023) and London (2022) and her work has been included in group exhibitions including most recently at Super Super Markt, Berlin, Germany; What We Make Where at the Hyde Park Art Club, Leeds; AMP Gallery, London (all 2023); The Art House x The Ridings, Wakefield; Collected, Newcastle upon Tyne; and Tetley Associate Artist Studio Showcase (all 2022); Centre for Recent Drawing, London and Art Walk Wakefield (both 2021).

Places

Subjects

Materials & Techniques

aluminium, oil, oil paint, oil painting

Artist

Zoë Carlon (1993 - )

Title

Market Cafe

Date

2021

Medium

oil on aluminium

Dimensions

height: 50.4 cm; width: 40.5 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from South Parade, March 2022

Provenance

South Parade, London UK; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection, 23 March 2022

GAC number

19057