Interview with Ian Davenport – Art Plural Gallery
Ian Davenport is one of the most prominent contemporary artists of post-painterly abstraction. As with his paintings, he injects news life to the practice of paintings in the most literal sense of the word. Within the stripes and sections, Davenport would count the seconds involved in each pour of the paint – deeming it similar to a musical beat. Sometimes this entire process takes place in happenstance and other times, under the pressure of a calculated tilt of the surface. Davenport’s artistic visual language is deeply rooted in colour, rhythm, timing, control and chance. He delights in creating diptychs, triptychs, singular works and at the same time enjoying the culmination of a large-scale monumental piece.
Gathered pool of colours at the bottom of Everything (2004), by Ian Davenport, from above.
The artist consistently creates complex colour arrangements in vertical lines of varying widths. Starting out to only have had experimented with monochromatic or subtle hues, he expanded his repertoire and proceeded to work with bright, vibrant tones from animated sitcoms in popular culture – such as The Simpsons. His works are formal and calculated, but also vulnerable to unassailable forces of gravity and chance. Seeking inspiration from Italian frescoes, cars, street signs, and Flamenco, Davenport works by pouring gloss paint from heavy-duty syringes spaced along the top of the working surface, and then tilting it, or simply allowing the paint to overflow and ooze into concentric puddles. Borne out of rigorous experimentation, the artist creates works that explore physical and psychological relationships between the viewer and his visual culture with sensory immediacy.
Former Turner Prize nominee, Ian Davenport’s aim is to create a purely visual experience through colours. The artist is recognised for his intense and unconventional painting practice, working with a crescendo of colours orchestrated in rows of lines. His distinctive creative process involves the pouring of paint with an industrial syringe over the body of a working surface, allowing the line of colour to ebb and flow into saturated puddles.
“I am thrilled to be working on my first solo exhibition in Singapore – Art Plural has the potential to become one of the most important galleries in the region and it’s an honour to be one of the first solo shows in this unique space. This exhibition is a great opportunity for me to showcase some new paintings and reach a completely new audience at the same time” - Ian Davenport
Landmark: the 48-metre artwork Poured Lines is made up of graffiti-proof enamel panels
In 1997, Ian Davenport was commissioned to create a site-specific installation for Banque Paribas in London. In 2003, Davenport produced a wall painting for the Tate Triennial and was commissioned by the Contemporary Art Society in 2004 to make a wall painting “Everything” for the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Warwick University. Davenport was also commissioned by Southwark Council and Land Securities to produce Poured Lines: Southwark Street. It is London’s most spectacular outdoor public artwork, as part of the regeneration of Bankside which was completed in 2006. The capital’s latest cultural landmark runs along a wall beneath the Western railway bridge over Southwark Street, one of the main approaches to Tate Modern. Ian Davenport’s massive mural, at 48 metres long and 3 metres high, is longer than Michelangelo’s painting for the Sistine Chapel.
Art Plural Gallery is pleased to announce the inaugural solo exhibition of British artist Ian Davenport in South-East Asia. The exhibition titled Ian Davenport: Between the Lines runs from 11th May through 7th July, 2012 and features new paintings which the artist has specifically created for this exhibition.
“Ian Davenport belongs in the realm of great colourist painters. We are very pleased to be the first to present his works in South-East Asia” - Frédéric de Senarclens, CEO of Art Plural Gallery.
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