Ian Davenport: Lakes

Ian Davenport - Lake No. 1 (Tide) detail

“Working on a large scale, flooding the gallery with colour, brings out certain themes in painting that interest me. I can allow the paint to behave more like a sculptural entity: it is manipulated by me but also by gravity, and the work has a pronounced relationship to the floor, much like a sculpture”.

Another good exhibition visited on my Cork Street trip was this at Waddington Custot featuring the poured lines of artist Ian Davenport (previously). His Lakes series dominate here. They are huge, immersive paintings which spill lines of colour from the wall, which then congeal in beautiful chromatic puddles of abstraction onto the gallery floor, and invite the viewers to actually step into/onto the work. There is a lovely sense of tension and contrast of the poured but controlled lines of rigid paint on the wall, against the randomness and fluidity of the same paint collected in the spilled pools of colour on the floor. Davenport is a skilled colourist, selecting and combining the harmonious colours wonderfully, allowing one colour or hue to dominate which is then supported by other contrasting vibrant colours.

Lake No. 2 (Tectonic)

Shuffle

Mirrored Amaranth

Do Dah

Mirrored Blue Light N0. 2 (after Perugino)

Outside In

Black Powder

White Stars

Lake No. 1 (Tide)

Blue Perugino Study

Mirrored Blue Light N0. 1 (after Perugino)

Mirrored Napthalo Crimson

Ian Davenport: Lakes

until 11th November

Waddington Custot

11 Cork Street

London

W1S