Neal Tait (British, born )

Timeline

1965
Born in Edinburgh, Neal Tait studied at Chelsea School of Art and then the Royal College of Art, where he graduated in 1993.
1987–1991
Chelsea School of Art , London (BA )
1991–1993
Royal College of Art, London (MA)
1993
Henderson & Parkinson Travel Award
2001
Residency British School at Rome
For his exhibition at White Cube in February 2000 he presented a series of paintings of individual heads. Each painting depicted a character that appeared sealed in and self-contained. The most distinctive element in these pictures is that the character’s eyes are always averted, making the people seem unavailable, refusing the gaze of the viewer. As well as this, their features are variously reduced, schematised, bleached out or latent beneath mask-like layers of translucent paint. Tait often works from various types of source material – an image in a magazine, a sketch from the imagination, or as is most often the case, a photograph. He often re-works paintings over a length of time, adding and subtracting elements according to the internal dynamic of the painting, which is sometimes bold and at other times obscure. In the past, Tait has explored a series of given, irreducible structures such as a group of suburban houses, simplified to their most basic elements – four walls, a window and a roof. Tait also makes gouaches that present corners of the everyday world, the clutter of a living room, a scout’s hut in a playing field, a birdhouse, an old television set, the overlooked things on the periphery of our vision.
Tait’s pictures demonstrate his concern with painting as an exploratory process, whereby meaning can be suggested through the handling of paint itself. In his recent paintings, large areas of canvas remain blank creating the feeling of open-ended, expanded works which seem to suggest many different narratives; transparent washes and thin skeins of paint describing simple, informal structures. There is a distillation at work, where a thought process has been reduced to an ineffable subject, darkly emotional and suggestive of a burgeoning psychological drama. Often displaying an extreme version of figuration using a flat and reduced palette, they push the limits of representation.
Tait has exhibited at various venues internationally. Solo exhibitions include White Cube, London (1999 and 2002), Sies + Höke Galerie, Düsseldorf (2002 and 2004), Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2002) and Monica da Cardenas, Milan (2004). In 2000 Tait was awarded the British School at Rome Fellowship.
Lives in London

Exhibitions

2011
Works of Paper, ACME., Los Angeles
2011
Among Flesh, Alison Jacques, London
2011
Der Menschen Klee, Kunst Im Tunnel, Dusseldorf
2011
Watercolour, Tate Britain, London
2011
Works of Paper, ACME., Los Angeles, CA
2010
The Milkplus Bar, Josh Lilley Gallery, London
2010
Kupferstichkabinett - Between Thought & Action, White Cube, London
2010
Once, Removed, Apartment Gallery, Athens
2010
What Have I Done? Fine Art Society, London
2009
TURPS BANANA 1, Galleria Marabini, Bologna, Italy
2009
TURPS BANANA 2, Galleria Marabini, Milan, Italy
2009
Les Toits de Parise, White Cube, London, UK (solo)
2008
Paintings: 1936-2008, The Approach, London

2008
Sies + Hoke Galerie, Dusseldorf (solo)
2008
The Dressmaker Who Lived on The Outskirts, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York (solo)
2008
Drawings, North Gallery, ACME, Los Angeles (solo)
2007
Very abstract and hyper figurative, Section III, Department of Pigments on Surface, Museum of Modern Art and Western Antiquities, London
2007
Tambalamb, ACME., Los Angeles (solo)
2007
Very Abstract and Hyper Figurative, Thomas Dane, London

2006
Now is the discount of our winter tents, White Cube, London (solo)
2006
Dark Mutter, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens
2006
About Painting, Paraplufabriek, Nijmegen
2006
John Baldessari / Neal Tait, Museum Dhondt-Daenens, Deurle, Belgium
2005
Hoch hinaus, Kunstmuseum Thun, Schweiz
2005
Summer Exhibition 2005, Royal Academy, London
2005
If not that then this, Sies + Hoke, Dusseldorf
2004
Der gute Schmerz, Sies + Hoke, Dusseldorf (solo)
2004
Galleria Monica De Cardenas, Mailand
2004
Eclipse, White Cube, London (u.a. mit Mona Hartoum, Sergej Jensen, Darren Almond, Cerith Wyn Evans, Isa Genzken)
2004
She's come unedone,Artemis Greenberg van Doren, New York
2004
Direct Painting, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim
2004
Neal Tait, Galleria Monica De Cardenas, Milan (solo)
2003
The Burnished Ramp, White Cube, London (solo)
2003
Dirty Pictures, The Approach, London (group)
2003
The Burnished Ramp, White Cube, London
2003
Dirty pictures, The Approach, London
2002
Paintings on the move, Kunsthalle Basel
2002
The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (solo)
2002
Sies + Hoke Galerie, Dusseldorf (solo)
2002
In the Freud Museum, Freud Museum, London (group)
Painting on the Move, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (group)
2002
Neal Tait, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (solo)
Neal Tait, Sies + Hoke Galerie, Dusseldorf (solo)
2001
Abbild. Recent Portraiture and depiction, Steiriscerrbst, Landesmuseum, Graz (group)
2000
Drawings, Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel-Aviv (group)
Salon, Delfina Project Space, London (group)
Hellseher, Konkordiastr, Dusseldorf (group)
no.site.specific, Mellow birds, Underwood Street, London (group)
Cheated, A22 Projects, Laystall Street, London (group)
2000
Painting, White Cube, London (solo)
2000
Painting, White Cube, London (solo)
1999
Limit-less, Krinzinger Gallery, Vienna (group)
1998
Rising Scum, Fab-Co Warehouse, Brixton, London (group)
1997
Election Night, Poster Gallery, London (collaboration) (group)
1996
Untitled, Mallow Street, London (group)
1995
Unplugged, Peckham Road, London (group)
1994
Miniatures, The Agency, London (group)
1993
Whitworths Young Contemporaries, Manchester Riverside Open, Riverside Studios, London (group)
XIXI, Henry Moore Gallery, Royal College of Art, London (group)
1993
Cottage, Union Street, London (solo)
1993
XIXI; Henry Moore Gallery, Royal College of Art, London
1991
Germinations, Lugwig Forum, Aachen, Germany; Budapest, Hungary (group)
1990
Arteries, Huntington Gallery, Boston (group)
Riverside Open, Riverside Studios, London (group)
1989
Whitworths Young Contemporaries, Manchester (group)
1988
Spirit of London, South Bank Centre, London (group)
English (US)

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