I quickly started to feel that painting was more an action than an object. Painting was something I did to the world, or that was done to the world, but it was also a way of bringing the world nearer, of somehow rehabilitating it.
Richard Wright presents a new wall painting at Aird's Lane, a work that is both site-specific and temporary, activating the gallery for the duration of the exhibition – its geometry drawing attention to the light and air, the way the architecture holds them. The painting is tightly composed and edged but jostling, the flow of shapes, alternating in scale, colour and direction, drawing the eye around the space.
Wright has worked with a close-knit team on the installation for two weeks. It is painted with one- stroke brushes, each section applied meticulously with a steady hand. To produce the composition Wright worked and reworked drawings – cutting, photocopying, composing – and eventually producing a complex digital cartoon. This was then scaled and transposed, firstly in pencil and then paint, with certain areas improvised and changed during the process.
Piet Mondrian's utopian 'Transatlantic Paintings' have been an ongoing interest of Wright's. This series was produced between 1935 and 1940, with many paintings begun in Europe and finished in New York. The Dutch artist's process of placing sections of commercial adhesive tape onto a surface to generate compositions and create vibrant colour relationships recalls Wright's experimentation. Finding a balanced and rhythmic interaction of shape and colour is key for Wright. This concern also speaks to his training as a signwriter in the 1980s in which he specialised in producing hand-painted posters, known then as 'ticket writing'. While a precise artform this practice taught Wright certain key lessons, specifically that the scaling and space around lettering should always be to the aid of the overall composition. As with signwriting, although the method used to produce the painting is demanding, there is a sense of effortlessness and ease to its final appearance – the material evident but the technique almost invisible.
Press release courtesy The Modern Institute
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