Contemporary Fine Arts

Julian Lethbridge

Inside Out

09 Jun - 02 Sep 2017

exhibition view
JULIAN LETHBRIDGE
Inside Out
9 June – 2 September 2017

Contemporary Fine Arts is pleased to present “Inside Out,” an exhibition of new paintings by Julian Lethbridge.
The exhibition is the artist’s first with the gallery and his first in Germany.

At first glance, Lethbridge’s gestural paintings appear highly tactile. Working in layers of oil paint and pigment stick and employing the vocabularies of abstraction and minimalism, Lethbridge creates an illusion of textured impasto surfaces. The often contrasting palettes contribute further to a sense of three-dimensionality and depth, however, closer inspection reveals that the surfaces are, in fact, flat.

Lethbridge’s illusionistic play demonstrates his interest in the materials and techniques of painting, and is also echoed compositionally. Initially appearing chaotic or random, careful observation makes evident the compositions’ highly ordered and methodic grid-construction. Linear patterns are also incised into the painted surface, interrupting and complementing the soft, swirling organic forms. Through such juxtapositions and formal explorations Lethbridge develops a dynamic visual language and an immersive, cerebral experience of painting.

Julian Lethbridge, born in Sri Lanka in 1947 and raised primarily in England, studied at Winchester College and Cambridge University. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and can be found in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), The Tate Gallery (London), The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago), and The National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.).

Julian Lethbridge lives and works in New York.
 

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