'A Better Place to Live In' takes it’s title from a fragment of the narration from the 1955 cartoon 'The Hole Idea' in which the central character Calvin Q. Calculus invents a portable hole - a black circle that can be stuck to the wall and become an escape route. 'A Better Place to Live In' is a vinyl sticker that can also be stuck to any surface; its central image is reproduced from an image in a vintage travel book, which once offered a different kind of portable escapism.
In the work, an image of a mountain is contained by a geometric modernist design, which has a double function, both an abstract composition and an elaborate frame for the image. He is interested in the narratives of aspiration and progress that are tied to modernist design, evoking and questioning a sense of optimism in relation to a representation of nature at its most epic and inhospitable.
Colclough studied at The Chelsea College of Art & Design 1996-1999 and Central Saint Martins 2008-2009 where he also currently teaches. Recent solo exhibitions include: Still Light, The Eye Sees, Arles, France (2019); The Place We’re In, Glass Cloud, London; On Ground, Gallery 333, Phoenix Art Centre, Exeter (2018); Neither From Nor Towards, Art Seen, Nicosia (2017); Choreography of Fragments, La Galerie Particuliére, Paris (2017); Material Symmetry, William Benington Gallery, London (2015); Other Worldly, dalla Rosa Gallery, London, (2014).
Selected group exhibitions include: Just a Bowl of Cherries, Experimental Center for the Arts,Thessaloniki, Greece (2019); The London Open, Whitechapel Gallery, London; New Relics, Thames-Side Gallery, London; Painting Notes, Art Seen, Nicosia, Cyprus; LAND SCAPE, Lone Wolf Projects, Exchange, Berlin (2018); Various Species, Greystone Industries, Suffolk (2016); Abt Forms, Art Seen, Cyprus (2016); Contemporary Drawing from Britain, Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts, Xi'an, China (2016); Perfectionism (part II), Griffin Gallery, London (2015); Anthology, Charlie Smith, London (2015); Jerwood Drawing Prize, The Jerwood Space, London (2013); The Fine Line, Identity Gallery, Hong Kong, (2013); EarthWorks, P.P.O.W. New York, (2012); There Was a Country Where They Were All Thieves, Jeanine Hofland Contemporary Art, Amsterdam (2012); Collection No 1.Interior and the Collectors, Lyon (2011); The Joy, Nettie Horn, London (2007); Mostyn Open, Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno, Wales (2005).
His work is in private collections in London, Berlin, Paris, New York, Hong Kong and Cyprus.
