Drop, Roll, Slide, Drip..
..Frank Bowling’s Poured Paintings
1973-1978
When I visited the Tate Britain a few weeks back, there was an
exhibition of one of the most notable abstract expressionist artists; Frank
Bowling. Sure I could’ve combined it
with my other post about the Tate, but I felt that a true great in the field of
lyrical abstraction deserved a whole post to himself, plus he seemed to have
painted a lot in those five years..
Ultimately Bowling’s style is very aesthetically pleasing, you couldn’t
look at the work and ‘dislike’ it, after finding his niche, it was the colour and material structure of paint which
became (and still remains) his main concern.
He began by pouring acrylic paint directly onto the canvas and angling
it so that the paint would slowly flow to the bottom. Once realising the
promise of this technique, he then built a specially made tilting platform that would enable him to pour paint from a height
of up to 2 metres. This way allowed the paint to flow faster in more energetic movements.
He explored layering paint, usually in different colours. So that after
initially flowing down in straight lines the different colours would mesh
together, resulting in a swirly configuration at the bottom of the canvas.
He first exhibited in New York back in 1973, and has spent the last
thirty years developing his practise; adding other materials and more paint. His
work pretty much speaks for itself; elegantly simple and honest with no
underlying themes; just true aesthetics.
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