British artist Noj Barker is to receive a solo show at The Club at Ivy
The celebrated British artist Noj Barker is to receive a solo show, entitled BLINK, at The Club at Ivy, opening 22 May, 2019.
In the same way Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964) painted different arrangements of the same set of vases, bowls and pots, Barker paints dots. Into these he incorporates smaller dots, creating intense, intricately configured compositions. The resulting works, which are all rendered in acrylic, can be austere or flamboyant; singular monochromes or psychedelic, trippy whirligigs of colour.
BLINK — Barker’s first solo exhibition in London since his Saatchi Gallery presentation in 2010 — is formed of three parts. Arrayed on the Ivy’s rear walls are the most recent works, three silkscreen prints that has been created through digital manipulation of images of original paintings.
Barker’s Radstone series, executed between 2018 and 2019, will be displayed in box frames bathed in ultraviolet light. These paintings, for which Barker has employed multifarious competing colours, are complimented by suite of works from the same period. For some of these, Barker employs the dash motif, which, when seen beside the more familiar dots, might be construed as Morse code, itself a sequence of dashes and dots.
Says art writer Jenny Knowles. ‘Noj Barker explores the relationship between the telescope and the microscope and he paints with a magnetic pull towards the surface and beyond. A new world is revealed as he compels you to look deeper, like stargazing, providing an hallucinogenic matrix of chroma and pattern. Some works are restrained, almost sonata like in form, others blaze the retina with a symphony of colour. It is an hypnotic meditation which invites you to step back and then forward again to look once more.
Having dived deep into the minutiae of his painting, his work is then transformed when scanned and magnified, and transferred on to new mediums. Noj’s work is now becoming recognised and even worn as a brand, primarily via an Instagram theatrical stage set inspired by his family and friends.
‘In a world of increasingly polarised division, it’s important to be able to step back, switch off and contemplate in order to try and make some sense of the world we inhabit. Through his art, Barker dives deep through that surface to focus on the vibrancy of colour and textures that connect our world, the things in life that we share are far more than that, that divides us.’
Because the The Club at Ivy is a private club, viewing is by appointment only. Please contact info@albanyartscommunications.com
The Club at Ivy,
9 West St, London
WC2H 9N
Exhibition dates: 22 May — 31 May
