BRICE MARDEN

These paintings evoke the daily and seasonal shifts in natural light and colour that Marden observes when working in his studio in Tivoli in upstate New York. He begins with drawing, filling some canvases with gestural glyphs that occupy a realm between writing and painting. Over these, he applies sinuous, multihued networks of linear brushstrokes, establishing interrelationships between the compositions’ straight and curving lines, and between their contours—whether defined or implied—and perimeters.

Each vertical panel measures 8 by 6 feet, comprised of an upper 6-by-6-foot square with a 2-by-6-foot section beneath. The paintings’ lower registers echo the form of a predella—the horizontal panel of smaller companion paintings that Renaissance artists added at the base of an altarpiece. Stained with dilute washes of earthy terre verte, these residual sections import the palette of the larger areas above them.

Also on view is Rocks, a double-panelled painting more than 22 feet in length. Begun in Marden’s studio in Hydra, Greece, and completed in Tivoli, its expansive surface is defined by ribbonlike lines and fields of color. Related works on paper made on the Caribbean island of Nevis reveal the immediacy and range of Marden’s drawing practice and exemplify the artist’s sustained engagement with the traditions of Chinese poetry and calligraphy, which he initiated in the 1980s and has continuously developed ever since.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with an essay by Eliot Weinberger.