Jorell Bonnick

I CLOSE MY EYES AND DREAM AWAY

Brent-based ActionSpace artist Jorell Bonnick presents a new billboard commission in partnership with BuildHollywood and Studio Voltaire.

Jorrell Bonnick uses repeated shapes in his work, exploring colour and form through abstract drawings and collage. These bold, dynamic works are meticulously created to register presence in space. Colour vibrates across the surface as abstract forms congregate together. Jorell developed his practice further through the lockdowns of 2020-2021, during which he formed smaller-scale works of his distinctive colour-scapes, which continue to evolve.

Bonnick has been an ActionSpace artist for five years. The ActionSpace studio at Acava in Barham Park has become a creative home for a community of young Brent-based learning disabled artists. Throughout lockdown the artist sustained his practice at home, spending hours producing markings that resembled a landscape or mapped space. Having so far produced mostly small- scale compositions on paper, this commission has allowed Bonnick to bring his work into the public realm, challenging the ways in which ableist power structures often prevent many disabled artists from taking up space. The billboard will embody the artist’s assertion of presence in a public space, through a work visible at all times of day, to be freely encountered and engaged with by anyone passing by.

Access key: transcription (below).

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DATES AND LOCATIONS:
8 – 11 July: 125 Clapham High Street, SW4 7SS
11 – 17 July: 167 Clapham High Street/Gauden Road, SW4 7XA
18 – 24 July: 14 Dudden Hill Lane, Willesden Green, NW10 2ET, Brent
25 – 31 July: Walm Lane/26 St Pauls Ave, Willesden Green, NW2 4QU, Brent

Instagram: @actionspace

Jorell Bonnick’s billboard was commissioned as part of the Brent Biennial 2022, titled ‘In the House of my Love’. The second edition of the Biennial asked how, and why, the act of making home can be a form of resistance and survival within the context of hostile environments—including those of racism, homophobia, ableism, climate catastrophe and political austerity. The Brent Biennial 2022 was curated by Eliel Jones, in collaboration with a curatorial committee comprised of artists Adam Farah, Abbas Zahedi and Jamila Prowse. Find out more by visiting the Archive.