Reimagining Colour

26 Jan-12 Mar 2023

Overview

Maddox Gallery is proud to present Reimagining Colour, a group exhibition that introduces new voices to the resounding chorus of historically important Abstract, Figurative and Colour Field artists.

Transcending painterly traditions through a fusion of high art and popular culture, the works on show collectively question the representation, formalism and colour theory that were central to the Abstract Expressionists. 

Much like many of the 20th century artists who are synonymous with this period, the bright, expressive, large-scale paintings on show are filled with emotion. A marriage between Abstract Expressionism and Post-Painterly Abstraction, the romantic and the robust, the painterly and the linear, together these contemporary fine artists present a vision of a post-war world, eclectically interpreted in their own distinct styles. 

Boldly abstract in nature, British artist Nick Grindrod’s playful paintings experiment with colour, structure and form. Hisintuitive way of working in ‘real time’ means that his removal of paint and erasure of marks are just as important as the application of paint, resulting in art that hums and vibrates with an exciting energy. 

 Presenting vivid assemblages of intense colour, sharp contrasts and scrawlings of cryptic language, Berlin-based David Pher’s paintings are an interplay of intention and craftsmanship with spontaneity and chance. With his abstract works, he transports the viewer into a dreamland through subtle interactions between bright, evocative hues and darker elements.

Influenced by the Renaissance and Baroque periods, Colombian-born Dairo Vargas’s fluid brush strokes invite the viewer to reflect on personal memory and encourage introspection. Referencing the Old Masters, his abstract paintings capture the process of thought by using gestural free association to access subconscious memories and emotions and convey different psychological states. 

Melissa Herrington’s large-scale abstract paintings, meanwhile, explore the concept and complexity of transformation. Through a charming mix of Colour Field and Abstract Expressionist painting techniques, she invites viewers into her world of saturated colours and soft pastel shades, where loosely sketched forms are overlaid with irregular marks that appear to have been left unintentionally.

Evoking a meditative response from the viewer, the Reimagining Colour exhibition encourages us to look within ourselves. By exploring our thoughts and feelings – which, like abstraction, do not have a physical or concrete form – we gain a better understanding of the artists’ intentions, and see what they feel: sadness, joy, ecstasy and melancholy.