Figuring Light: Colour and the Intangible - Djanogly Art Gallery, The University of Nottingham (14 November 2008 - 18 January 2009). Exhibition curated by Dr. Richard Davey, (Visiting Fellow, School of Art and Design, Nottingham Trent University). An illustrated publication (ISBN 978-1-900809-56-6) includes a forward by Professor Judith Mottram (NTU) and an essay by Davey and ‘Colour Conversations’ with each of the four artists (Duncan Bullen, Jane Bustin, Rebecca Partridge, and Richard Kenton Webb). A series of lectures and a round table discussion also took place during the event. Two drawings exhibited in Drawing of the World, World of Drawing, Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea November 2009. A fully illustrated publication published by Seoul National University accompanies the exhibition. One drawing exhibited in From Art School to University, Art and Design at Brighton 1859-2009. A fully illustrated publication published by Seoul National University accompanies the exhibition.
The invitation to participate in Figuring Light came at a point in my career when I had made a decision to reconfigure my practice. A period of reappraisal of my intentions and materials followed in which I stopped making paintings, and took an extended break from any form of printed work. My work up until this point dealt with a reduced abstraction in which colour in darkness was explored through successive layers of semi-transparent and opaque pigment leading toward a chromatic density. Instead, I immersed myself in drawing as a primary medium, rather than as a preparatory study for a work in another medium. This decision had significant implications for both my research and practice and brought with it many new conceptual challenges and technical considerations.
The first results of this activity resulted in a group of works in which colour relationships are activated by drawn points of silver and colour pencil on gesso coated panels. Six 1 meter square and three 50x50cm drawings were exhibited as part of Figuring Light.
In these drawings colour is activated by a concentrated series of dots which when viewed from a distance, dissolve producing a fluctuating surface and indeterminate colour. What emerged from this reconfiguration was an investigation into the process of drawing as a means of generating a sensory experience of colour that explores and develops the limits of representation and a deceleration of perception.
