Friday 13 June 2014

Ian Davenport - Waddington Custot

Ian Davenport, Ambassador (Double), 2014
Ian Davenport: Colourfall is at Waddington Custot until 12 July 2014. 
You wait years for a good exhibition of stripe paintings, then two come along at once! First Bridget Riley: The Stripe Paintings 1961-2014 at David Zwirner (until 25 July 2014 - see below) and now Ian Davenport at Waddington Custot. Davenport is, however, a painter of a different stripe to Riley!
I have loved Davenport's work since his Goldsmiths/Freeze pourings of 1988; his subsequent experiments with chance and control in the ordering and flow of paint have produced some spectacularly beautiful results. This exhibition brings together a range of work from 1989 up to the present. The earliest piece is Satin Black on White from the Bottom to the Top (1989) in which he 'drew' lines by dripping paint from a nail attached to a long stick. (He has also employed syringes, watering cans and electric fans as well as, most commonly, gravity, as means to disperse paint across a surface.) The most recent work comprises lines of acrylic paint poured down a stainless steel surface and allowed to 'puddle' at the bottom. 
Read articles by Karen Wright, Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Sheryl Garratt; watch a short video of Davenport talking about his work.
Great stuff! (NB click on images to enlarge.)
Ian Davenport, Satin Black on White from the Bottom to the Top, 1989
Ian Davenport, Poured Painting: Magenta, Orange, Magenta,1999
Ian Davenport, Second Season Part 1, 2014
Ian Davenport, Colourcade: Magenta/Purple/Green, 2014
Ian Davenport, installation view, Waddington Custot, 2014
Ian Davenport, installation view, Waddington Custot, 2014
Ian Davenport, installation view, Waddington Custot, 2014
Ian Davenport, installation view (Colourcade, 2014), Waddington Custot, 2014

No comments:

Post a Comment