Abstract Colour @ Marlborough Gallery
Abstract Colour at Marlborough Gallery spotlights the artistic practice of British painter Gillian Ayres (1930-2018), who, following in the footsteps of the American Abstract Expressionists, transformed the medium of painting with her bold colouristic experiments and innovative spirit. Rather than presenting a traditional solo exhibition, Marlborough celebrates the lasting impacts of her long career through a conversation led by art. Specifically, the works by seventeen contemporary artists open visitors’ eyes to the ongoing importance of abstraction by exploring different reactions to colour as a concept.
Its title, Abstract Colour, simultaneously provides every bit of information and yet, also nothing at all. Intentionally broad, it invites one to guess what treasures might be found behind the gallery’s doors. Moreover, no better title would suit the exhibition it is suggestive of the sheer diversity of materials, sizes, combination of colours, and vibrancy of tones found in the works on display. As such, the show’s curator, Lewis Dalton Gilbert, correctly observed colours are a universal language from which many conversations can start. Thus, the exhibition does not simply present seventeen different interpretations of one theme but investigates how each gives life to disparate perspectives of reality and contradictory feelings through innovative manipulations of colour.
Gillian Ayre, Astrophil and Stella, 1982-83. Oil on canvas, 273.5 x 274 x 3.4 cm. Image courtesy: Marlborough Gallery.
Gillian Ayres’ large-scale painting Astrophil and Stella (1982-83), which hangs on the gallery entrance wall, sets the scene.
Reds, yellows, greens and browns, brushed on feverishly, attack the canvas space, splitting it into multiple pieces of reality. Inside this explosive celebration of colours, areas of rigid geometry and open space contrast one another, imbuing the canvas with a certain vivacity and force that attract the eye towards it. However, the instant one turns away, this moment of colouristic contemplation immediately vanishes.
Suddenly, the physical aspect of the painting takes the place of the visual one. Within an unusual shift of senses, the optical transforms into the tactile. Layers of paint lose their representational role overcoming their two-dimensionality. Instead, they’re pushing the painting outwards as they’re attempting to reach the viewer. Eyes, doing their work, try to follow the brushstrokes of colour energetically lashed on the canvas and decipher which kind of figures those accumulations of paint represent. Simultaneously, a muscular impulse grows from arms and pulses to hands, making one desire to touch them. Observing Gillian Ayres’ work, rational implications evacuate the space of the intellect, which is now filled only by the physical instinct of genuinely experiencing the materiality of the painting, reflecting the prerogatives of her artistic practice.
Remi Ajani, Bull Paintings (Untitled 2), 2022. Oil on canvas, 61 x 76 x 2 cm. Image courtesy: Marlborough Gallery.
By contrast, Remi Ajani’s Bull Paintings (Untitled 2) (2022) convey a different sensation. Characterised by a decisive difference in the tone of colours used in the background, they underline a contradiction, as if they embrace the intrinsic conflict of human emotions. The chaotic brushwork and dark colours in the central swirl intensify this feeling; one can sense the quick and spontaneous motions of the artist’s hand working on the canvas. Is it anger, frustration, or melancholy that creates this vortex? It could as easily be all of them as it could be none.
In this exhibition, works by Lubna Chowdary also shine. Within her practice, she plays with various materials, categories, textures, and techniques - from architecture to paintings, craft to sculpture - to create works that defy classification. In CERTAIN TIMES LXVII (2022), various shapes and lively colours are compacted together to compose a unique art object. Geometry and fantasy mix in the singularity of a practice the artist invented on her own. Chowdhary voices her inspirations by personally investigating her naïve and authentic creations that bring joy to viewers.
Lubna Chowdhary, CERTAIN TIMES LXVII, 2022. Ceramic, 50 x 107 x 7 cm. Image: Carolina Lorenzini.
Following the same theme, Sam Bakewell's pieces transmit a sense of playfulness. At the first encounter with his works, the challenge was establishing what medium he used. Is it a sculpture or a painting? The decision to hang his pieces on the wall seems to indicate the latter… Yet, the distinct three-dimensional qualities of the thick sculptural ‘brushstrokes’ break down the traditional flatness found in painting, forcing their way into the room.
Indeed they are neither. Instead, the canvases seem to replicate the childhood act of applying heavy dollops of paint to a wall and letting it dry, only to peel off later to create a miniature sculpture. By contemplating Bakewell's ceramics, it was exciting to revisit forgotten memories of childhood games. Resembling clay or play-doh, it was difficult not to reach out a hand to squish the works’ surfaces. Comparable to this messy childlike action, the artist’s inventiveness emphasises the youthful nature of the creative process, letting the material speak for itself and become something unordinary.
Sam Bakewell, Lumb, 2022. Ceramic, 28.9 x 31.5 x 5.8 cm. Image: Carolina Lorenzini
Also found within the liminal boundaries between sculpture and painting are Baraj Matthews' works. Looking at his Untitled (2019), one enjoys his invitation to forget the parameters set by dimensionality and lets imagination travel toward unreachable places. Tiny, dynamic lashes of paint entirely cover its metallic base to create an abstract rainbow.
Simultaneously, situated on pedestals, his Lacrimae (2020) sculptures place the immanence of human suffering in crystallised tears. The relationship between ceramics and paint generates a fusion of colours and glittered granules. Thus, Matthews gives life to a unique object of art that subverts the conventionality of these practices. Once again, the artist's power of abstraction plays with materials and turns the bare matter into a work of art.
Baraj Matthews, Untitled sculpture, 2022. Mixed Media, 175 x 20 x 12 cm. Image: Carolina Lorenzini.
Faced with a white-cube gallery adorned with such brightly coloured works, it is easy to feel lost in an explosion of artistic practices on display. Paintings, ceramics, sculptures, and other unknown different media, pop as a group yet do not overpower one another, allowing one to notice the infinite directions artists can take following their inspirations. The sheer variety of styles and manifestations of colour seem like they would cause a struggle. But, the further one surrenders to the field of Abstract Colour, the more transparent the exhibition’s message becomes…
Each of these artists speaks the universal language of colour, but they translated it into their particular expressivity and unique artistic identity. As spectators, even if we can see the same colour, we experience it differently. We read different stories, feel other emotions, and appeal subjectively to the essence of an artwork. Going back to the conception of the creative process as a primordial act, as an instinct for artists to create, Abstract Colour is a reminder not to try to find always a meaning but to enjoy art as a means to navigate new perceptions and feelings.
Abstract Colour is on view at Marlborough Gallery, London until March 10, 2023.
Carolina Lorenzini
Reviews co-editor, MADE IN BED