Sunday 5 March 2023

Abstract Colour

Gillian Ayres - Astrophil and Stella, 1982-83



"In Abstract Colour, we have highlighted Gillian Ayres' practice to punctuate each chapter in this exhibition, in conjunction with other artists working towards similar artistic concerns. Each artist uses their work to tell stories and express emotional planes experienced while making. While one's reaction to colour cannot be generalised, colour can function as a universal language and entry point to begin conversations around our own thoughts and feelings." - Lewis Dalton Gilbert.


A really enjoyable survey this of contemporary abstract artists based around the busy, colourful works of Gillian Ayres (1930 - 2018). Colour is such a huge part of the art and design experience. Creatives have used it for generations to create moods, or invoke psychological or physiological effects in the viewer. With so many hues and shades of individual colours to choose from using colour can be a daunting prospect. As an artist myself, I formerly felt personally intimidated by colour, choosing instead to focus on other formal elements like line and form, creating work primarily in black and white. It was a pleasure then to see the abandon with which the artists here employ the variety of hues in the across the whole spectrum in their work. Many artists use colour in a systematic way applying their own ideologies and sets of rules to colour theory in their work. Others use colour in a more spontaneous, instinctual manner. Each colour has its own characteristics and associations attached to it depending on whatever culture or context it is viewed from. I enjoyed seeing how each artist employed colour as an exploration of their own personal abstract visual language which was variously formal and geometric, or loose and painterly. There were bold statements expressing the joys of the beauty of the full spectrum of the colour palette, and there were other darker, more tonal nuanced works. It was a pleasure to see the inclusion of ceramics in this exhibition. I was unaware of this aspect of Gillian Ayres' oeuvre, and liked the solid, bulbous forms that she created. Nicola Tassie's works here were my favourite of the ceramicists though. I enjoyed the subtle tonal harmonies in her palette, and the sense of pattern in her mark-making. Having worked for a longer period, Ayres' work (quite rightly) does tend to dominate the show however, Ayres is so assured in her mark-making, colour choices and complex compositions. I have developed a new found appreciation of her work. 



Gillian Ayres - Marazion and Marsland, 2017

Lubna Chowdhary - Certain Times LXVII, 2022

Baraj Matthews - Untitled, 2019

Ilse D'Hollander - Untitled, 1990-91

Ilse D'Hollander - Untitled, 1990-91

Remi Ajani - Bull Paintings (Untitled 1), 2022

Remi Ajani - Bull Paintings (Untitled 2), 2022

Lydia Gifford - Thermal, 2022

Lydia Gifford - Javelin, 2022

Max Wade - Breakdance, 2022 

Baraj Matthews - Untitled Sculptures #33 and #13, 2020

Baraj Matthews - Untitled Sculpture #33, 2020

Baraj Matthews - Untitled Sculpture #13, 2020

Joseph Goody - Nameless Spectacle, 2021

Joseph Goody - Oblique, 2022

Joseph Goody - Axiom, 2022

Dóra Maurer - Bicinies No. 6, 2015

Caroline Denervaud - The present stability between all that is happening, 2022

Caroline Denervaud - The flying horizontally of my body, 2022

Caroline Denervaud - Never stop playing, 2022

Gillian Ayres - Spin Winds No. 1, 1998 

Gillian Ayres - Spin Winds No. 3, 1998 

Nicola Tassie - Strokes, 2022

Joe Warrior-Walker - Whale-Juice and Moonshine, 2020

Joe Warrior-Walker - Giallo, 2021

Nicola Tassie - Dunloe, 2022

Gillian Ayres - Scud, 1960 

Ilse D'Hollander - Untitled, 1996

Lynda Benglis - Elephant Necklace 56, 2016

Gillian Ayres - Hold On, 1987

Gillian Ayres - Hartland (No. 1), 2000

Gillian Ayres - Hartland (No. 6), 2000

Andrew Graves - Somewhere, 2022

Andrew Graves - Land, 2022

Nicola Tassie - Test Card, 2021







Abstract Colour
until 10th March
Marlborough
6 Albemarle Street
London
W1S

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