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Flatlands

Flatlands is an exhibition and publication forming part of my long-term artistic research on colour. The exhibition contained 20 paintings and over 150 drawings and working drawings that have been produced over the past 15 years. The exhibition took place at the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (4 May–14 July, 2013) and Spike Island, Bristol (22 November 2013–26 January 2014). A catalogue of 120 pages includes essays by Fiona Bradley and Rudi Fuchs, and a conversation between the artist and the exhibition curator Andrea Schlieker.

My studio practice is concerned with how and in what ways colour is experienced in the modern city. In particular I work with luminescent colours – those that shine, glow or project – and the typical materials they are made from – plastics, electrical components and their supports. The work in Flatlands was concerned with surface colours – those that lie on another material or are dyed into it – and much of the work employed spray paints and liquid commercial paints as well as everyday materials such as fluorescent highlighter pens and coloured adhesive tape. The aim is to draw attention to materials and colours that are often overlooked in our everyday environment, to employ these materials and colours in the production of drawings and paintings, and to make work in which the principal subject is colour.

In pursuit of these aims I have worked with the media of sculpture, painting, photography and drawing, and I have written three books on the subject: Chromophobia (2000), Colour (2008), and The Luminous and the Grey (2014). Chromophobia has been translated into seven languages and sold over 30,000 copies. I have also worked on a number of large-scale colour-based projects in the public realm. A number of the drawings presented in Flatlands relate to these projects.