Rex Southwick

“Rex’s works offer a dialogue between escapism and the often-overlooked reality of maintaining that escape.”

– Catherine Loewe, Curator

The title of Rex Southwick’s latest solo exhibition with Unit is borrowed from Dorothea Tanning’s expansive 1962 painting, Éperdument, created after her relocation from America to the South of France in search of creative refuge in 1957.

To Distraction mirrors a journey in search of escape along the Côte d’Azur, which has long attracted artists and architects seeking respite from urban life. This series emerged from Southwick’s time at an artist residency in one of Jacques Couëlle’s iconic sculptural Landscape Houses above the Bay of Cannes. Southwick’s large-scale paintings depict a quiet, often mundane “backstage” view of some of the Riviera’s most notable – and lesser-known – architectural dwellings. A recurring theme in his practice is the relationship between individuals and the spaces they inhabit, and how environments influence behaviour.

The works span from the pioneering modernism of the 1920s, exemplified by Villa E-1027, to the exuberant forms of the 1980s, such as the Palais Bulles – an emblem of the bubble house craze that swept France. For Southwick, the true value of the Côte d’Azur lies in its dense concentration of diverse, high-quality architecture and artistic heritage, packed into a remarkably compact stretch of coast.