Alan Johnston ceiling drawing – Tactile Geometry at the new Djanogly café Courtesy Caruso St John and Tate © Hélène Binet
Alan Johnston, Untitled, 2013, Curtesy Private Collection The Netherlands
November 28th- February 4th 2014 www.barthacontemporary.com
Bartha Contemporary is pleased to announce an exhibition of recent paintings by the Scottish artist Alan Johnston.
The presentation coincides with the completion of the artist’s ceiling drawing entitled ‘Tactile Geometry’ at Tate Britain.
Looking back at an a career spanning 40 years the exhibition at Bartha Contemporary features a series of paintings revisiting some of the central themes that have determined the artist work over the past decade. Painted on canvas or wood supports these paintings explore an illusionary space, their seductive often highly tactile surface enhances the experience. Painted on un-primed supports, fields of dark charcoal or pencil-drawn areas on modulated titanium or zinc white acrylic fields respond to each other to create a delicate interplay of opposing forces. The hard-edged nature of the composition is softened by an almost organic hand-made appearance and the raw untreated supports.
Alan Johnston is one of the leading British geometric abstract artists of our generation, known for his large-scale architectural interventions and collaborations with architects such as Diener & Diener in Basel or Shinichi Ogawa in Japan his numerous wall-drawings have led to the recent commission of a large ceiling drawing as part of the recently re-opened Millbank Spaces at Tate Britain. Edwin Heathcote of the FT commented: “A new vaulted ceiling has been created here and decorated with infinite care by artist Alan Johnston, whose delicate pencil work carefully articulates the individual vaulted segments.”
