Ehrlich Steinberg is pleased to present Losing Braincells, a solo presentation by London-based British artist Louis Blue Newby for Paris Internationale 2024. Losing Braincells is a series of composite printed and painted works on wooden panels, formed through an intricate layering of found pornographic and erotic imagery. The series’ title takes its name from the online slang term “gooning”, a sexual practice in which an individual masturbates or edges themselves to such an extent they enter a trance-like stupor. Whilst screen printed in the transparent material Crisco - a brand of vegetable fat historically used as lubricant within gay male sexual subcultures - the faces in the works are made visible through the application of a fine dust blown across the surface of the print. Grease and dust - substances that sit in contradiction to traditional archival practices - are rerouted by Newby as the primary materials for revealing and concretising an image. The series continues the artist’s exploration into queered archival language through notions of image-making, consumption and desire.

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Working with print, collage, sculpture and drawing, Louis Blue Newby destabilises the clinical and sanitary mechanisms of traditional archiving. In its place, his work reconstitutes archival materials as messy and uncontained modes of longing. Often framing his work within the language of public space, objects such as cork boards, notice boards and light boxes become conduits for such desire, a desire to consume and be consumed publicly.

Newby received a BA from Chelsea College of Arts in 2018 and an MA from the Slade School of Fine Art, London. Previous exhibitions include Deep Inside (Public Facing) at Soft Opening, London, UK (2023); Blueprints of Hope: Celebrating Queer Spaces at UCL Octagon Gallery, London, UK (2023); ALL NIGHT at Sherbet Green, London, UK (2022); Sessions Arts Club, London, UK (2022-23); The Artist Room at the Tom Of Finland Foundation Arts & Culture Festival (2022); SKINFLICKS at Xxijra Hii, London, UK (2022); Testing Ground at FILET, London, UK (2022); MELTDOWN at Ridley Road Project Space, London, UK (2022); healthy pink at springseason, London, UK (2020). In 2019, Newby was selected as part of Bloomberg New Contemporaries, exhibiting at Leeds Art Gallery and South London Gallery. Other awards and funding include the Nancy Balfour Scholarship (2021); OMNI Artist Award (2021); The Elephant Trust (2020) and the This is This Award (2018). Newby’s moving-image work south florida sky, a collaboration with artist Laila Majid, was selected as part of the Dazed X Circa Class of 2022. Newby’s upcoming two-person exhibition Inner Heat with Laila Majid opens at Goldsmiths CCA, London, UK in November 2024.


Installation view. Losing Braincells by Louis Blue Newby, 2024.Photo: Margot Montigny


Louis Blue Newby, Losing Braincells (Tessa), 2024. Crisco, dust, UV print and oil paint on wooden panel in perspex frame, 20 x 16.25 x 2 in. (51.1 x 41.1 x 5.4 cm). Photo: Jack Elliot Edwards.


Louis Blue Newby, Losing Braincells (Tessa), 2024. Crisco, dust, UV print and oil paint on wooden panel in perspex frame, 20 x 16.25 x 2 in. (51.1 x 41.1 x 5.4 cm). Photo: Jack Elliot Edwards.


Detail. Louis Blue Newby, Losing Braincells (Tessa), 2024. Crisco, dust, UV print and oil paint on wooden panel in perspex frame, 20 x 16.25 x 2 in. (51.1 x 41.1 x 5.4 cm). Photo: Jack Elliot Edwards.


Louis Blue Newby, Losing Braincells (Eli), 2024. Crisco, dust, UV print and oil paint on wooden panel in perspex frame, 20 x 16.25 x 2 in. (51.1 x 41.1 x 5.4 cm). Photo: Jack Elliot Edwards.


Louis Blue Newby, Losing Braincells (Eli), 2024. Crisco, dust, UV print and oil paint on wooden panel in perspex frame, 20 x 16.25 x 2 in. (51.1 x 41.1 x 5.4 cm). Photo: Jack Elliot Edwards.


Detail. Louis Blue Newby, Losing Braincells (Eli), 2024. Crisco, dust, UV print and oil paint on wooden panel in perspex frame, 20 x 16.25 x 2 in. (51.1 x 41.1 x 5.4 cm). Photo: Jack Elliot Edwards.


Louis Blue Newby, Losing Braincells (Danny), 2024. Crisco, dust, UV print and oil paint on wooden panel in perspex frame, 20 x 16.25 x 2 in. (51.1 x 41.1 x 5.4 cm). Photo: Jack Elliot Edwards.


Louis Blue Newby, Losing Braincells (Danny), 2024. Crisco, dust, UV print and oil paint on wooden panel in perspex frame, 20 x 16.25 x 2 in. (51.1 x 41.1 x 5.4 cm). Photo: Jack Elliot Edwards.


Detail. Louis Blue Newby, Losing Braincells (Danny), 2024. Crisco, dust, UV print and oil paint on wooden panel in perspex frame, 20 x 16.25 x 2 in. (51.1 x 41.1 x 5.4 cm). Photo: Jack Elliot Edwards.


Louis Blue Newby, Losing Braincells (Donna), 2024. Crisco, dust, UV print and oil paint on wooden panel in perspex frame, 20 x 16.25 x 2 in. (51.1 x 41.1 x 5.4 cm). Photo: Jack Elliot Edwards.


Louis Blue Newby, Losing Braincells (Donna), 2024. Crisco, dust, UV print and oil paint on wooden panel in perspex frame, 20 x 16.25 x 2 in. (51.1 x 41.1 x 5.4 cm). Photo: Jack Elliot Edwards.


Detail. Louis Blue Newby, Losing Braincells (Donna), 2024. Crisco, dust, UV print and oil paint on wooden panel in perspex frame, 20 x 16.25 x 2 in. (51.1 x 41.1 x 5.4 cm). Photo: Jack Elliot Edwards.


Louis Blue Newby, Losing Braincells (Brad), 2024. Crisco, dust, UV print and oil paint on wooden panel in perspex frame, 20 x 16.25 x 2 in. (51.1 x 41.1 x 5.4 cm). Photo: Jack Elliot Edwards.


Louis Blue Newby, Losing Braincells (Brad), 2024. Crisco, dust, UV print and oil paint on wooden panel in perspex frame, 20 x 16.25 x 2 in. (51.1 x 41.1 x 5.4 cm). Photo: Jack Elliot Edwards.


Louis Blue Newby, Losing Braincells (Brad), 2024. Crisco, dust, UV print and oil paint on wooden panel in perspex frame, 20 x 16.25 x 2 in. (51.1 x 41.1 x 5.4 cm). Photo: Jack Elliot Edwards.