Derek Sprawson – Recent Work
Exhibition:
Beam, Nottingham
12 December 2024 – February 2025
Beam is pleased to present an exhibition of recent work by Derek Sprawson (1955). It is the first time the gallery has shown a selection of his paintings since the publication of ‘Hy-phen – Paintings, Drawings, Objects’, the first monograph on the artist (Beam Editions, 2022).
Over the course of his highly dynamic painting career, Sprawson has engaged in the exploration of the painted surface and the possibilities of abstract painting. This current body of work can be characterised by a beguiling sense of colour, deft and delicate surfaces and ambiguous forms and spaces.
The two large canvases in this exhibition, Neowallic, 2022 and Ufa, 2022 bring together shapes, painterly marks and subtle washes of tone. This work resonates with an iconic body of paintings the artist produced in the 1990s shown first at Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham and then later at Bernard Jacobson, London. The earlier work utilised oil paint and wax to create textured surfaces while the current work uses acrylic paint, producing delicate washes of colour on an inherently flat surface. Both bodies of work include amorphous and biomorphic forms. While the artist’s work has frequently alluded to the natural world, the work is never pictorial and is always intended to be purely abstract.
Featured in this exhibition is a series of plywood constructed forms with painted surfaces. While these works have sculptural characteristics, the artist refers to these works as ‘painted objects’, as they are intended as paintings with a three dimensional presence.
The large Lozenge shaped Darkly, 2024 uses shifts of grey and white tones with a light application of paint. The forms and atmosphere of the work resonate with the paintings of British artist William Scott (1913–1989), the work of whom Sprawson has long admired.
Creeky Noises, 2024 is composed of a series of painted marks that have a feeling of drawing. Soft edged white lines on a grey surface layer and intersect. The marks capture a tension between spontaneity and slow execution with an anarchic quality. Nocturne #1, 2014–2019, contains the delicate washes of colour that appear in the canvases in the main space combined with the drawing-like marks in Creaky Noises.
This exhibition runs alongside a complementary exhibition ‘Incidentally’ at Lakeside Arts and is a rare opportunity for Nottingham audiences to experience the breadth of Derek Sprawson’s recent painting practice.
Both exhibitions are accompanied by a free catalogue featuring an essay on the artist’s work by Nicholas Alfrey, titled ‘Incidentally: Paintings, 2021–2024’.