Ian Davenport

Description

The first monograph dedicated to Ian Davenport, this richly illustrated book provides a comprehensive account of the artist's career. Charting a history of intensely rigorous and unconventional painting processes, Martin Filler guides the reader through twenty-five years of artistic production. From early electric-fan paintings, to his poured arches, circles, lines and puddle paintings, we see how Davenport has experimented with method and medium, exploring varying qualities and applications of paint, both in his early monochrome paintings and in his later complex colour combinations. Filler demonstrates the strong influence of European and American abstraction, including such artists as Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Ellsworth Kelly, while also showing how Davenport has been affected by the contemporary urban environment of London today. Michael Bracewell's interview provides a crucial insight into Davenport's approach to painting, along with his own personal account of his artistic achievements. Their conversation reveals Davenport's ideas, observations and humour. A rare opportunity to see the evolution of Davenport's paintings, while providing an important context for each phase in his artistic development, this book clearly demonstrates how Davenport has interpreted a variety of influences and developed a body of work that is distinctively his own.

Michael Bracewell is the author of many books, including England is Mine. He is a regular contributor to Frieze and The Burlington Magazine. Martin Filler's writings have been published in more than thirty journals, magazines and newspapers. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003. Ian Davenport studied at Goldsmiths College, graduating in 1988, the same year that he participated in Freeze, the seminal YBA exhibition curated by Damien Hirst. In 1990, Davenport held his first solo exhibition at Waddington Galleries. He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1991 and has exhibited worldwide. Davenport has been commissioned to create site-specific installations for Banque Paribas, London (1996), the Groucho Club, London (2003), the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Warwick (2004) and, in 2006, for Southwark Council and Land Securities, 'Poured Lines: Southwark Street. a 50 metre long, 3 metre high mural installed at Southwark Street.

'Gorgeous ... a beautiful book that is well structured and offers a comprehensive overview of an accomplished and popular artist' - Aesthetica 'This publication - which consists, like some chocolatey snack, of thin layers of text, interleaved with much thicker helpings of shiny, colourful illustrations - is deliciously moreish to look at' - The World of Interiors