Nixon in colour
EPW: Polychrome at the Sarah Cottier Gallery.
He had his Black Period, his Crosses Period, his Silver Period, his Orange Period and now, at 60, John Nixon has moved on to colours. It’s like Moscow, 1915, all over again.
Nixon started painting the EPW: Polychrome (the EPW stands for “Experimental Painting Workshop”) works in 2006, and in 2007 showed more than 100 of them at the TarraWarra Museum of Art in Healesville, Victoria. He calls them Colour-Rhythm paintings, classified into groups, each with its own colour system.
The Colour-Group E (Random) paintings incorporate nine colours: three primary and three secondary colours, and black, white and silver. The order is random; each painting is, according to Nixon, another experiment within a decades long – in his words, “never-ending” – project of pure painting.
My interest is not so much in returning to history as developing that history. I see my work as a continuation of the radical Modern project.
In 2009, Nixon is a radical Modernist like couture cobbler Christian Louboutin is a radical Modernist, except that Louboutin is making something new. Nixon reiterates bits of old strategies from the early history of abstract painting, almost a century after the fact: Suprematism, Constructivism and, with this latest batch of work, the interest in colour rhythm of the Italian Futurists.
In April this year Nixon showed “Applied Paintings” from Colour Group E (Random), including designs for theatre sets, wall-paintings and stage curtains – classic Productivism; all that was missing were costume designs for the Ballets Russe – at the Anna Schwartz Gallery. This latest exhibition, at the Sarah Cottier Gallery, is an installation of a small group of colour stripe paintings.
Two Colour Fracture (Colour Group A) paintings are also included. These are more interesting works, a proto-Cubist variation on the stripes that move outside the strict geometry of the entire series and, indeed, the vast bulk of Nixon’s work. A moving line is a rare thing in a Nixon painting. If he keeps this up he could find himself in the Milan of the 1920s any day now.
John Nixon, EPW: Polychrome is at the Sarah Cottier Gallery, 3 Neild Ave, Paddington [map] until 19 September 2009.
Image details, from top:
John Nixon, Untitled – Colour Group E (Random) 2008. Enamel on MDF, 60 x 180cm.
Slides:
1. Installation view, Sarah Cottier Gallery.
2. John Nixon, Untitled – Colour Group E (Spectrum) 2008. Enamel on MDF, 60 x 90cm.
3. John Nixon, Untitled – Colour Group E (Random) 2008. Enamel on MDF, 60 x 90cm.
4. John Nixon, Untitled – Colour Group E (Random) 2008. Enamel on MDF, 60 x 90cm.
5. John Nixon, Untitled – Colour Group E (Random) 2008. Enamel on MDF, 60 x 180cm.
6. John Nixon, Untitled – Colour Group E (Random) 2008. Enamel on MDF, 60 x 90cm.
7. John Nixon, Untitled – Colour Group E (Random) 2008, installation view. Enamel on MDF, 60 x 180cm and 60 x 360cm.
8. John Nixon, Untitled – Colour Group E (Random) 2008. Enamel on MDF, 60 x 120cm.
John Nixon, Untitled – Colour Fracture (Colour Group A) 2008. Enamel on MDF, 60 x 90cm.
Paul Hayes 2009.