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Ian Davenport

IAN DAVENPORT

Lake Waddington Custot 5 October–10 November 2023 London
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Press Release

Opening this autumn, a new exhibition by British painter Ian Davenport (b. 1966, Sidcup, Kent) includes the artist’s largest ever wall to floor installation, alongside new and recent work. Two immense paintings installed in the heart of the gallery, Lake 1 and Lake 2 feature lines of poured paint that flow down the length of the wall, and into a pool of colour that extends over eight metres across the gallery floor. For the first time, visitors have the opportunity to step directly into the work as they move through the space and become immersed within it.

Developed over several months in Davenport’s studio in Peckham, south east London, these two large scale installations are a natural progression for his work. In recent years Davenport has been working on an ever more ambitious scale: in 2017 he was invited to invited to make a 14-metre long painting for the Giardini at the Venice Biennale: 2022 saw the opening of a site-specific installation on the steps of the Chiostro del Bramante in Rome, as part of an exhibition curated by Danilo Eccher. Of this new work in London, the artist says: ‘Working on a large scale, flooding the gallery with colour, brings out certain themes in painting that interest me. I can allow the paint to behave more like a sculptural entity: it is manipulated by me but also by gravity, and the work has a pronounced relationship to the floor, much like a sculpture.’

The use of unconventional methods to apply paint is central to Davenport’s practice: spanning a career of over three decades, his paintings have been created with syringes and watering cans, or with paint poured directly from its tin. In this exhibition, Davenport’s more recent paintings of poured lines reveal a greater sense of symmetry, and a technique whereby the pooled paint is pushed back on itself, creating a new optical effect which evokes a tide of colour. Whilst retaining his original sense of calculated rhythm, the overall effect is now one of mirroring. The colours are selected instinctively, indirectly inspired by sources as diverse as medieval stained glass and Saturday morning cartoons.

The exhibition at Waddington Custot will mark Davenport’s tenth show with the gallery, beginning with a debut in 1990 after his graduation from Goldsmiths as part of the YBA generation.

Coinciding with the exhibition, a new monograph focused on Ian Davenport’s works on paper will be published by Thames and Hudson, with texts from curators Jonathan Watkins and Jo Melvin. A coinciding exhibition of selected works will be on show at the Burton Art Gallery and Museum in Bideford, Devon.

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Installation Views

Exhibition view: Ian Davenport, Lake, Waddington Custot, London (5 October–11 November 2023). Courtesy Waddington Custot, London.
Exhibition view: Ian Davenport, Lake, Waddington Custot, London (5 October–11 November 2023). Courtesy Waddington Custot, London.
About the Artist

Ian Davenport (b. 1966, Sidcup, Kent) is an abstract painter recognised for his complex colour compositions and whose work is informed by a deep understanding and enjoyment of paint. Since graduating from Goldsmiths’ College of Art in 1988, Ian Davenport has experimented with everyday tools such as watering cans, electric fans and nails, designed to exercise and limit his manipulation of paint. His various means of execution are driven by a desire to investigate the paradox between control and chance. It has led him to emphasise the action of painting as his subject matter, observing that ‘the how to paint became the what to paint’. He is well-known for using hypodermic syringes to pour liquid household paint onto surfaces. In 2008, Davenport noticed that the poured paint pooled into puddles on the floor; this visual contradiction between controlled, precise lines that then merged freely, autonomous and self-determining, embodied the paradox between control and chance. He has incorporated the puddles into his recent Puddle Paintings, which demonstrates Davenport’s process-led approach. He contemplates the colour harmonies of each composition, each possessed of their own visual sense of timing, rhythm, interval and accent.

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Also Exhibiting

All Exhibitions
Group Exhibition
GROUP EXHIBITION The Nabi shock Waddington Custot 24 June–12 September 2026 London
Ian Davenport
IAN DAVENPORT Reflections Waddington Custot 21 September–21 November 2026 London
About the Gallery

Waddington Custot was formed through the partnership of French art dealer Stephane Custot and long-time London art dealer Leslie Waddington, in 2010. Located in Cork Street since 1958, formerly as Waddington Galleries, the gallery has a rich heritage and an international reputation for quality and expertise in works by modern and contemporary masters, with a particular focus on monumental sculpture.

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Address
11 Cork Street
London
United Kingdom
Opening Hours
Monday – Friday
10am – 6pm
Saturday
11am – 6pm
(1)
London 11 Cork Street
Waddington Custot contemporary art gallery in London United Kingdom
Waddington Custot
11 Cork Street, London, United Kingdom
+44 207 851 2200
http://www.waddingtoncustot.com

Opening hours
Monday – Friday
10am – 6pm
Saturday
11am – 6pm
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