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| Ian Davenport, Mirrored Place, 2017 |
Ian Davenport: Colourscapes is at Waddington Custot, until 8 November
2018.
From Waddington’s website:
Waddington Custot presents an
exhibition of new paintings by British artist Ian Davenport. The works in the
exhibition further extend Davenport’s career-long investigation of chance,
colour and the innate qualities of paint.The main gallery space will house Davenport’s large-scale Puddle Paintings, which follow on from his14-meter-wide installation at the 2017 Venice Biennale and introduce a sculptural element to the picture-plane. Using a schematic colour-palette, Davenport meticulously applies paint from a height, allowing it to ebb and flow in a single linear stroke, a process which is then repeated to form a landscape of colour. These new works, including ‘Mirrored Place’ (2017) and ‘Olympia’ (2018), also incorporate intricate and varying natural patterns as the paint pools at the bottom of the vertical panel in a physical extension of the painting.
Recently, Davenport has been
interested in expanding his artistic dialogue by examining the flow of paint in
more detail and investigating how to manipulate liquid acrylic to create more compositional
variety and complexity. Davenport has found a method to pour a sheet of
different colours together in one gesture. As he draws with the paint, often in
a diagonal direction, the artist is experimenting with the expansion and contraction
of line.
Contrasting with these
methodological and rhythmical poured bands, Davenport’s Splat works on paper resemble
explosive fireworks. The artist builds paint up in layers, obscuring and
erasing each preceding mark to create energy and depth. The mark making is
active and aggressive with passages of openness. The fallout from the paint’s
impact as it hits the paper leaves residual traces and splinters of colour.
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| Ian Davenport, Olympia, 2018 |
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| Ian Davenport, The Harvest Study (After Van Gogh), 2018 |
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| Ian Davenport: Colourscapes - installation view |
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| Ian Davenport, Mirrored Place, 2017 (detail) |
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