Linda Pickering - Tangerine & Burgundy

Wednesday 1 - Saturday 18 June 2022  

Click here for artwork by Linda Pickering

 

non-objective, non-representational, non-figurative, non-imagist, non-expressionist, non-subjective: Ad Reinhardt, 1962

Restraint and repetition with a stripping away of gestural mark, Linda Pickering’s latest body of work Tangerine & Burgundy continues her ongoing interest and exploration of the aesthetic possibilities within the context of abstraction. Investigating the interaction of colour, value, saturation and composition within a strict geometric format, balance in composition with precision in line and colour is achieved.

With a background in science, Pickering has a firm basis in observation with a preparedness for experimentation and a determination to follow through and find solutions to enquiry and problems - positive qualities for her art practice and the concerns she herself explores in a ‘choice and consequence’ approach. Avoiding premeditated outcomes, Pickering uses the same set of parameters for the first work and each subsequent painting. By prioritising intuition over structured planning, the works are allowed to develop organically, each work responding to its predecessor. Playing between structure and spontaneity, a calm tension in the work is achieved.

The great and fatal pitfall in the art field and in life is dependence on the intellect rather than inspiration. Dependence on intellect means a consideration of observed facts and deductions from observation as a guide in life. Agnes Martin

As a result, Pickering creates complex arrangements of forms, but each one is a variation of many possible outcomes. In her exploration of the notion of abstraction, like early twentieth century Russian artist Kasimir Malevich, Pickering’s work is free from the representation of recognisable figures and objects. In this way, according to Malevich, art develops its language of forms and creates new realities no less significant than the realities of nature itself. It’s a world of anti-materialism, anti-utilitarianism: art for art’s sake and the philosophy of Suprematism - the supremacy of pure artistic feeling rather than a visual depiction of objects.

(Opening paragraphs of catalogue essay by Keith Lawrence)