'Untitled (Drab)', Ian Davenport

Artwork details

Artist

Ian Davenport (born 1966)

Title

Untitled (Drab)

Date 1990

MediumOil paint on canvas

Dimensionssupport: 2135 x 2135 mm

Collection

Tate

Acquisition Purchased 1990

Reference

T05841

Not on display

Display caption

Untitled (Drab) is one of a series of paintings Davenport made in the same tonal range of colours. Using housepaints he loads a brush and, placing it at one end of a canvas, he allows the paint to drip and trickle downwards. In the case of this painting he also turned the canvas and worked in the opposite direction and at right angles. As a result, the effect of gravity, which plays such an important part in Davenport's painting, is both embraced and confounded. Davenport builds up an impastoed veil of parallel marks which are conceptually simple but spatially complex. By combining chance and systematic application of paint Davenport combined two seemingly opposite ways of working.

September 2004