Ian Davenport

Waddington Custot Galleries is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Ian Davenport from 2010 and 2011. In these recent Puddle Paintings, Davenport continues to use a large syringe to pour acrylic paint down aluminium or stainless steel panels, a process which enables him to explore diverse colour compositions. Davenport said; 'using a syringe enables me to control the paint flow to such a degree that my focus is almost completely devoted to the colour sequences in a work' . The 'puddling' at the base of each painting is created by bending the base of each panel, causing the lines to merge and overlap.

For this current exhibition many of the works have been inspired by historical masterpieces Davenport has studied in National Collections and Museums. Puddle Painting: Blue Study (after Van Gogh), 2011, takes its inspiration from Van Gogh's L'eglise d'Auvers-sur-Oise in its use of ultramarine blues, lemon yellows, lime greens and oranges. In the exhibition catalogue, Michael Stanley writes, it '… evoke[s] an intrinsic and familiar tenor of Van Gogh yet the painting is resolutely of itself' . By following colour sequences from another artists' painting Davenport is able to question and explore his own choices of hue.

Davenport's multiple panel works introduce backgrounds of different colours that the repeated vertical lines resonate against. In Puddle Painting: Magenta, Green, Purple, Red, 2011 the contrasting coloured backgrounds enable the artist to explore various chromatic weights in a single painting. This body of work continues his investigation of simple processes by adjusting the width of lines in the pouring applications, or the careful placing of dripped marks, as seen in the new Staggered Linesseries.