EPW

John Nixon’s exhi­bi­tion at Anna Schwartz Gallery Mel­bourne is the out­come of the artist’s con­tin­u­ing exper­i­ments at the edges of paint­ing. Iter­a­tions of three inde­pen­dent ​‘EPW’ (Exper­i­men­tal Paint­ing Work­shop) series, the exhi­bi­tion will fea­ture a con­cise and focused selec­tion of recent con­struct­ed paint­ings. These works on stretched can­vas with paint­ed wood addi­tions, verge on the sculp­tur­al, with depth and mass inter­rupt­ing and sur­pass­ing the qual­i­ties of pure colour as medi­um. How­ev­er, as part of Nixon’s exten­sive oeu­vre, they remain ful­ly and overt­ly in the realm of paint­ing: reit­er­at­ing and regen­er­at­ing the lega­cies of min­i­mal­ist, con­struc­tivist and non-objec­tive art, with can­vas always as the ground upon which fig­ures emerge or subside.

Twen­ty paint­ed works, from Pink, White and Black ​‘Exper­i­men­tal Paint­ing Work­shops’ are shown. Each work is both the process and result of Nixon’s research into the pos­si­bil­i­ties of com­po­si­tion and medi­um; the research by which he has remained one of the fore­most prac­ti­tion­ers of con­tem­po­rary abstract paint­ing the world over.