How Paint Works: Verging on Abstraction

Talking about painting, American post-war abstract painter Robert Ryman stated that his driving motivation was to see how paint works; he was eager to experience the “surprise that comes through the act of painting”. This newsletter showcases a disparate group of artists. Rather than united by a singular sense of colour, texture, form or subject matter, the artists work on the edge of abstraction and have one overarching common trait: an interest in how paint works. What can be done with the medium and how might painting enable us to see things differently? How might painting be a portal to the world, to our world, to other worlds?

If Ryman provides an introduction to this set of artists, the sheer expressiveness of the works and the artists’ desire to forge meaning from painterly invention makes it hard to overlook the influence of two other artists, Anselm Kiefer and Gerard Richter. Weathered and cracked surfaces, for instance, those of Andrew Szczech carry a sense of history. A voice to be unearthed. These contrast against Sarah MacFarlane’s thick rubbery overtly plastic applications of acrylic paint. Forms have body and volume, ensuring there is substance to the painted surface. This is literal but also, as with many of the works shown, allegorical. Throughout the group, we might ask questions of surface, of the beneath, of what painting gives and of what it conceals. Above all, how do we construct meaning? It is a question that these artists address through varied techniques and styles, making for a rich yet diverse selection of work.

Vanilla Cream (Rough and Smooth) by James O’Connell

18 x 23 cm | 7 x 9 in

Original painting in oil on wood panel

Within the selection, one might see echoes of Ryman in James O’Connell. White paint on canvas hints at a modernist history that is quickly skewed by the painting’s materiality. The paint has a luscious glow and the reference to “vanilla cream” in the title takes us away from painting. We quickly shift from a discussion on formalism to one of food and dessert. Initial sparsity fast becomes a space of abundance. Elsewhere, colour is used more freely and combined with a sense of play and a back and forth between the textured and the flat, more associations open up.

11 Bateman Road by Andrew Szczech