Alan Green (1932 – 2003) wanted to create “ordinary paintings as ordinary as the real world”. This came from his belief that, in the second half of the twentieth century, artists carried too much bag- gage to be able to experience “things”.
Green was one of the great British abstract artists whose formative years were spent in London in the 1960s. He was trained as an illustrator and graphic designer which freed him from the theo- retical constraints of art history. In the mid 1960s he made field paintings (which were remarkably advanced for their time) – in which his colour and its application dictated the form. His paintings are deliberately non emotional and controlled.
This exhibition is the 13th solo exhibition at Annely Juda Fine Art. It includes paintings and drawings from 1972 to 2003. The paintings, some over three meters in length, explore concealment and trans- parency. Their texture and method of application (variously using multiple layers of his own paint mixed from raw pigment and applied with the use of stencils, combs and brushes) encourage the viewer to analyse tone, plane and colour but also to see the whole work as engaging and physical. It is, as Green himself said, as if the “painting can become like a symbol of a painting”.
The exhibition includes fifteen paintings and eight drawings, which will be exhibited on the 4th floor.
