Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/150498
INTRODUCTION We are very pleased to present this fourth exhibition at the gallery of works by John Blackburn. Since our first meeting in a freezing cold studio on a snowy January day in 2005 John has become an important figure in our stable of artists and his work has been bought by collectors from far and wide; New Zealand, Hong Kong, USA and Europe. Although our initial attraction was to his works from the early 1960s it is now the new work that has found an international audience. Like all artists there are traces of influence; he has made no pretence of his admiration of the work of Jean Fautrier or Antoni Tapies or Alberto Burri; from the US early Rauschenberg and Cy Twombly and closer to home the work of William Scott or Roger Hilton have all played their part in the formation of his unique pictorial language. Yet there is a freshness and originality to his work, the unorthodoxy of his methods, his use of studio detritus and household paint, from his early encaustic works to the black pitch paintings of 2012 that were exhibited to great acclaim at a major exhibition at Studio 3 Gallery on the University of Kent campus. In June Blackburn celebrated his 80th birthday and he continues to be as energetic and vital in his work as he always has been. We are very grateful to Peter Davies for his fresh view on the work of John Blackburn, his life and work, and we look forward to welcoming you to the exhibition. Gordon Samuel His winter journeys to New Zealand have continued after Christmas each year where he spends three months or so in Muriwai. His work continues to be exhibited each year at the Artis Gallery in nearby Auckland to an expanding and appreciative collector base. So, after a period of relative obscurity on his return to the UK in 1961 and from his first exhibition with us in 2007 the work of John Blackburn has been recognized for its uniqueness and quality in an art world that has certainly rediscovered painting! In this exhibition we have for the first time included some postcard size paintings in mixed media and works on paper where ideas develop into larger scale works that go through various degrees of evolution, where an unsuccessful work is never abandoned but adapted to re-appear in another work. 2 John Blackburn, 2013 Photo: John Slater