Bernard Jacobson Gallery is proud to announce an exhibition of recent works by renowned British artist Marc Vaux.

Marc Vaux first gained recognition in 1960 when his work was shown in the ground-breaking Situation exhibition – alongside Robyn Denny, William Turnbull, Bernard Cohen, and others – showing large scale, purely abstract paintings in response to the new American painting that had recently been shown in London for the first time.

Vaux first began making wall constructions in 1977, subsequently his work has been defined as both minimalist and constructivist, but it is his abiding interest in colour and light which is at the core of his project, the works exhibited here are the latest in the long line of his inquiry into the relationship between colour, light and form.

Although at first seeming industrial and cool, our physical and emotional relationship to the shifting effects of light on colour elevate these works, lifting them into something altogether more transcendental:

‘Colour is known to have a direct effect upon the central nervous system/human sensibility, arguably the most effective modifiers of human response, over sound and touch ... it can be a pure visual experience equivalent to any other (experience). I see no reason why colour can't equate with melody and be as memorable.’ Marc Vaux quoted in Wiedel-Kaufmann, Ben (2011). Marc Vaux, New Paintings: Triptychs and Ovals.

Vaux’s low relief Ovals are an attempt to get away from the traditional restrictions of the horizontal and vertical, the works – mounted on a circular hanging device – can be installed at any degree of rotation, making possible infinite and dynamic ways of experiencing the work.

The oval form and its complex relation to the colour-edged, raised, angular forms which populate the interior of the works and the gently glowing reflection of these colours into the white background surface, give the works a feeling of being forever unsettled, always on the move to other relationships of colour and form.

A group of even more distinctly sculptural works consisting of an intersecting oval and trapezoid, each plane having its own distinct colour, project further off the wall increasing the complexity of these relationships fully into three dimensions.

With these new paintings Vaux shows himself to be a tireless investigator into the possibilities and qualities of colour and light.