Derek Sprawson Book Launch and Display of 14 New Paintings
Saturday 26th March at Beam, Nottingham
Open from 6.30 - Talks starts at 7.30 -------------
Book now
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Jonathan Casciani, Director of Beam Editions, will be in conversation with Derek Sprawson to celebrate the launch of Beam's new monograph of his work: Hy-phen, Paintings – Drawings – Objects, with contributions from art writers Emma Cocker and Richard Davey.
During the event, there will be a display of fourteen new works by Sprawson in the Project Space at Primary.
This event is FREE and includes food from Ambigu Bakery; there will also be a pay bar of natural wines from Wright’s Wines.
Attendees of this event will be able to purchase the 200-page beautifully bound hardback monograph for the special price of £20 (RRP £30).
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Event Format
- Food and wine from 6.30pm onwards
- Talk at 7.30-8.15pm
- Food and wine continues until 10pm
- Exhibition open all evening
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Food and Drink
Beam have invited their friends and collaborators from Ambigu Bakery in Nottingham to provide a selection of delicious dishes to help yourself to made from local, organic and biodynamic ingredients. Bradley will be selecting a stella selection of natural wines with Joel from Wright's Wines.
For those that like to eat early food will be ready from 6.30pm and will also be served after the talk finishes at 8.15.
This ticket is for both the talk and food only, there will be a pay bar on the night.
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About the book
Hy-phen, Paintings – Drawings – Objects, is the definitive study of the work of Derek Sprawson (born 1955). This book provides an overview of the diverse phases his paintings have traversed over forty years of practice.
Inspired by travels in Italy and the flatlands of Norfolk, Sprawson’s large canvases from the 80s and early 90s bring landscape into abstraction. His paintings question the appropriateness of terms such as representation and abstraction with an approach that blurred the boundaries between painting and drawing. Forms depicted in his work since the mid-90s appear reminiscent of amorphous shelters and, at times, take on the cartoon-like characteristics that can be found in the work of Phillip Guston, one of the artist’s key influences.
During his time teaching at Nottingham Trent University, Sprawson’s work remained in conversation with landmark practitioners of previous decades and contemporary painters of today through his curation of symposiums that included Ian McKeever, Marlene Dumas, Chris Ofili and David Batchelor, and exhibitions of the work of Frank Stella and Jules Olitski.
More recently, the artist has produced a series of highly inventive ‘painted objects’. Through the construction of fluid, plywood forms, Sprawson takes painting into three dimensions to create work that explores the margins between painting and sculpture.
Featuring two essays by Richard Davey and Emma Cocker that illuminate and analyse Sprawson’s themes and approaches, and extended captions revealing processes and inspirations written by the artist himself, this book celebrates the work of a truly innovative painter.
