Ian Davenport

The making of a Davenport painting is a very physical process: part painting, part performance. He begins by pouring household gloss paint onto mdf or aluminium panels that are then flipped or tipped to move paint across and off the surface. Put into words it sounds like a simple sequence and the resulting paintings with their seductive shine certainly have an immediate appeal. But they are also more complex than such a basic explanation suggests. Central to their success is the point at which they nearly go wrong: the tension of a fine line where colours kiss. They a have presence, the power to transform the room they inhabit, giving a different perspective to the space that surrounds them. In 2006, Davenport unveiled ‘Poured Lines’, a 50m long, 2.9m high permanent installation in an underpass near Tate Modern.

Ian Davenport participated in the group exhibition Gravity’s Rainbow at Ingleby Gallery in Spring 2011.