Today, from our friends at BURNAWAY, we bring you a review of Clayton Colvin’s solo exhibition at beta pictoris gallery in Birmingham. Author Brett Levine notes, “[The exhibition] represents a strong commitment to the practice of painting as much as to its meaning.” This article was originally published on February 4, 2015.

Clayton Colvin. Frontiersman, 2014; acrylic, charcoal, pigment, and india ink
on linen on panel; 46 by 56 in.

In new way to forget, Clayton Colvin’s third solo exhibition at beta pictoris gallery, we see the artist exploring what can only be termed “soft abstraction.” Intelligently and unapologetically walking a ground that meshes figuration and abstraction into a practice—more grounded in the latter and structured by the former—Colvin is at a stage in his career where he is far more interested in teasing out the edges of an idea than he is in categorizing a concept.

With this show, Colvin has almost, though not entirely, abandoned his earlier, more complex hard-edged radical geometries in favor of a saturated and fluid field. Glanton and The Land, in particular, are marked by patches of color that look as if they have literally pooled and spread on the linen surfaces of the canvases. Perhaps a reference to the characters in Cormac McCarthy’s novel Blood Meridian, the red edges of Glanton look as if blood has dripped from above. As with many of the other works in the exhibition, Glanton makes a literary reference that may or may not resonate with the viewer, something Colvin is unapologetic for. The experience of his works does not hinge on a higher understanding of his references, although this knowledge adds an additional layer—a respite filled with both humor and darkness—that separates the visual from both the cerebral and the emotional.

Read the full article here.