Ian Davenport - Ikon Gallery 2004

Exhibition Catalogue - Ikon Gallery - 22 September - 7 November 2004

This was the most comprehensive exhibition to date by acclaimed British artist Ian Davenport. Exemplifying an artistic proposition that has been remarkably consistent since around the time of his graduation from Goldsmiths College, London in 1988, it included over twenty paintings from several series, the results of an impressive range of techniques and processes.

Davenport’s work is abstract, reflecting an ongoing preoccupation with the materiality of paint and the process of painting, but at the same time is inspired by the nature and look of everyday urban life. The colours of cars, neon signs, clothes and buildings lead the artist to a response through the medium he has chosen: essentially household paint. Davenport’s work becomes part of the world he celebrates rather than a representation of it, at once open and unpretentious.

Davenport experiments with paint, pouring straight from the can or by syringe, blowing paint with electric fans, dripping it from carpentry nails and dressmakers pins. Such is the technical inventiveness in Davenport’s work which constitutes a return to first principles, a sheer delight in materials to hand and an infectious enthusiasm for the discovery of what can be done with them