John Nixon
EPW: Var­i­ous Paintings

This exhi­bi­tion is an overview of con­struct­ed paint­ings from the past year — works sit­u­at­ed with­in the lex­i­cons of min­i­mal­ism and max­i­mal­ism. It presents exam­ples from a num­ber of dif­fer­ent series with either sim­ple or com­plex for­mal struc­tures. The paint­ings have been ran­dom­ly placed side-by-side encour­ag­ing a view of their individuality.

The method of con­struct­ing or build­ing a paint­ing has enabled me to exceed the lim­its of the rec­tan­gle, to cre­ate paint­ings of dynam­ic shape and struc­ture through lay­er­ing and accumulation.

The most min­i­mal are mono­chrome paint­ings con­struct­ed from stacked pieces of irreg­u­lar­ly shaped MDF, one colour, one mate­r­i­al. By con­trast, the most max­i­mal­ist of the works each have a diag­o­nal wood­en stripe reach­ing beyond the bor­der of the rec­tan­gle. The diver­si­ty of mate­ri­als in these (var­i­ous woods, alu­minum, plas­tic, etc) and objects (saw blade, cup, etc) adds colour, tex­ture, dimen­sion and form. A fur­ther group is of paint­ings scaled to the size of a carpenter’s square, a tool of trade of the artist or car­pen­ter, which is here attached to the can­vas sur­face to rein­force its edge. Through the mate­ri­al­i­ty of all the works in the exhi­bi­tion, the non-objec­tive joins with the con­crete and real with­in an abstract realm.

The exhi­bi­tion design also reflects my inter­est in min­i­mal­ism and max­i­mal­ism. The room is large and white with a grey floor. The 50 select­ed mid-sized works are strate­gi­cal­ly shown at eye-height in a strong, con­tin­u­ous lin­ear frieze along all four walls to cre­ate a sol­id visu­al zone, engag­ing both mind and eye. This dis­play for­mat has been cho­sen for this par­tic­u­lar exhi­bi­tion, but at a dif­fer­ent time, the works could also be shown in their groups to enhance an appre­ci­a­tion of the many vari­a­tions with­in each sin­gu­lar theme.

John Nixon, Jan­u­ary 2015