Galeria Leme presents “Colour on Paper” an exhibition of mainly abstract, colour-based works on paper selected by David Batchelor.

“I fell in love with abstract art since when I first went to art college, over forty years ago. When I began to work with colour, now over twenty years ago, I realized that abstract art has offered many of the best examples of vivid colour in art. This is because in these works colour exists as itself; it is independent of perspective, modeling and the requirements of representation. And I have always loved working on paper, because this is often art at its most experimental, informal and unselfconscious.

In this exhibition I wanted to bring together these three loves: of colour, abstraction and paper. There is a great tradition of such work in Brazil, from the 1950s to the present. At the same time, many artists I know in the UK, continental Europe and the US are inspired by such work.

The exhibition will be cross-generational and international. It will feature works the1950s to the present. Some of the earliest works will be by artists associated with Brazilian modernism of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Volpi, Hélio Oiticica and Willys de Castro. More recent work will be by artists based in the UK, continental Europe, the United States and Latin America, such as Polly Apfelbaum (USA), Jim Lambie (UK), Eva Rothschild (UK) and Mauro Piva (Brazil). The work will range from small-scale, improvised works, through colour studies and diagrams, to collages, photographs and larger paintings.

The aim of the exhibition is to examine and celebrate the continuity and the diversity of colour on paper made over a period of over half a century.” - 'David Batchelor, March 2013'

David Batchelor

Artist and writer based in London. Born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1955.

Recent exhibitions include: Flatlands, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh/Spike Island, Bristol (2013/14); Magic Hour, Gemeentmuseum, The Hague (2012); Slugfest, Galeria Leme, São Paulo (2012); Chromophilia: 1995-2010, Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro (2010); Color Chart, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2008) and Tate Liverpool (2009); Unplugged, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh (2007); Extreme Abstraction, Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, New York (2005); the Biennial of Santiago, Chile (2005); Shiny Dirty, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2004); the 26th Bienal de São Paulo (2004).

Author of three book colour: on The Luminious and the Grey (2014), Colour (2008), Minimalism (1997), Chromophobia (2000). And also released the artist-book Found Monochromes: vol.1, nos.1-250 (2010).