When an invite for artist Kevin Kane’s new solo show landed in our inbox, our Brit Editor, now Miami-based started to get tearful. The show ….CULTIVATED GODS…is opening in Hoxton Arches, Shoreditch, in the heart of London’s East End …. literally a stone’s throw from our Ed’s old stomping grounds.   It’s an imaginative venue for Kane’s stunning body of work, which he describes as ‘a juxtaposition between traditional & contemporary, influenced by Chuck Close/Lucian Freud/Hockney.

This new Show is bringing together painting, sculpture, installation, and live performance to examine contemporary forms of worship. The exhibition considers the belief systems, desires, and structures of power that shape modern life, often operating unnoticed or unquestioned.

Rather than focusing on traditional religion, the works explore devotion as it appears today , embedded in celebrity, politics, money and social rituals, asking what has been allowed to flourish without notice, and what might, or should instead, deserve our attention.

The exhibition presents a series of paintings, sculptures, installations,  and performances that approach worship not as a fixed belief, but as a psychological and social condition. Figures, objects and materials function as stand-ins for modern gods: power, visibility, identity, aspiration and control.

Kane will present an altar at which to pay homage to the world of celebrity, power and where the natural world can be transgressed. At the back of the altar, as is traditional, will be a painting of a familiar deity, selfie ready. Towering over this painting, a 3 metre high inflatable sculpture will be presented, and viewers will be invited to give offerings to ensure the gods remain contented.