ART-PRESENTATION: Ian Davenport-Doubletake

 

Ian Davenport’s Abstract paintings are made by pouring and dripping household paint onto prepared canvases, boards and aluminium panels, tilted so that gravity and the consistency of the paint determine the final composition. This approach both systematic and random, predetermining both materials and process, results in paintings whose effect is based on physical immediacy rather than any theoretical background.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Paul Kasmin Gallery Archive

In “Doubletake” an exhibition of new paintings by Ian Davenport at Paul Kasmin Gallery, the artist explores the chromatic essence of historical masterpieces, the palette of many of the paintings being inspired by a canonical work. He has ranged widely through history for his sources, paying homage to paintings spanning from the 16th Century to the 20th, demonstrating how a great tradition of historical pictures can inform contemporary art. His technique, driven by an enduring fascination with the materiality of paint and the process of painting, is similar in each. First, after studying the painting in depth and gaining an intuitive understanding of its colors and hues, he goes to work using his signature technique, which delivers elegant vertical lines cascading down the panels into rich puddles of colour. Their effect is both sublime, in their evocation of waterfalls, and subliminal, in their reminders of history. Referenced paintings include Van Gogh’s “The Church in Auvers-sur-Oise, View from the Chevet”, (1890) pulling out the blues of the sky, the green and beige from the lawn and path, and the reds from the roof of the church. Other works that have inspired him include Jan Brueghel the Elder’s “Flowers In A Wooden Vessel” (1606), “Mada Primavesi” (1912) by Gustav Klimt, and “The Marriage of the Virgin” (1504) by the Renaissance master Perugino. Each time, Davenport uses the colors in the historical work as a reference point to initiate his own color sequences and explorations of movement, surface and light.  In so doing, he questions how colour gives shape to a picture, helping to structure the background and foreground in representational pictures, and produce rhythm and dynamism in abstract art.

Info: Paul Kasmin Gallery, 293 10th  Avenue, New York, Duration: 8/9-22/10/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00,  www.paulkasmingallery.com