Talk Art Live! We meet artist Studio Lenca (Jose Campos) within his recent solo exhibition 'Leave to Remain' at Carl Freedman Gallery in Margate.

‘Leave to Remain’ is the official term used by the UK Home Office, meaning someone who is allowed to stay in the UK with restrictions and without permanent legal status. According to the latest data from the UNHCR, 70.8 million people around the world have been forced from their own homes. Among them are 25.9 million refugees, over half aged under 18. In this latest body of work, Studio Lenca continues to explore his own displaced experience whilst questioning universal themes of belonging, home and lost histories.

Growing up as an illegal immigrant, Studio Lenca travelled illegally overland to the USA, growing up ‘without papers’ in San Francisco. As a young adult the artist moved to the UK, settling in Margate where he is now based. In his ‘Los Historiantes’ paintings Studio Lenca continues to play with the frames of history and identity. This new series depicts the folkloric dancers that theatrically re-enact stories of colonisation and the subjugation of indigenous peoples. The work playfully references a combination of biographical anecdotes, personal reflections and national iconography.

Alongside his characteristically vivid paintings, Studio Lenca will collaborate with KRAN (Kent Refugee Action Network), turning Carl Freedman Gallery into a working studio. Young refugees and asylum seekers will work with Studio Lenca to build large sculptural works based on the volcanoes of El Salvador. These works will explore the ‘borderless’ process of making and reference the artists own problematic encounters with a colonised education system.

Leave to Remain, offers a critical window within the gallery and a space for discussion. The show asks us to address Margate as a border town and who is allowed to leave and to remain.

Studio Lenca (b.1986 La Paz, El Salvador) is based at TKE Studios, Margate, UK. 

Studio Lenca is the working name of artist Jose Campos – ‘Studio’ referring to a space for experimentation and making; ‘Lenca’ referring to the Mesoamerican indigenous people of southwestern Honduras and eastern El Salvador.

He works with performance, video, painting and sculpture. He received an MA from Goldsmiths University of London and his work is included in the permanent collection of the Pérez Art Museum Miami and the Parrish Art Museum in New York.

Follow @StudioLenca

Visit: https://carlfreedman.com/exhibitions/2024/studio-lenca/

Special thanks to @CarlFreedmanGallery (where Talk Art's Robert Diament is Partner).

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