The Approach is hosting a selection of recent oil paintings from Phillip Allen. It is the third solo show the artist has had with the gallery.
In reworking the surfaces Allen has developed his own visual language culled from the tenet of classic abstraction. The iconic signatures exist as remnants of a body of work forever covered in paint. The painter insists that the imagery should not be approached too literally. These paintings are celebrations of form, color, figure and ground.
The heavy paint that spans the top and bottom edges of each piece behaves like a framing device and recalls colors all but lost in the mix of finding the focus. The thickness of the extremities contrast the washes present in the central plane and create an interesting figure ground reversal. This effect tricks the eye into flattening what may initially be interpreted as a spatial landscape.
Phillip Allen
Sloppy Cuts No Ice
20 November 2008 – 17 January 2009
The Approach W1
London
