Wafting, 2018

On Saturday 17th of August my wife and I visited the wonderful retrospective exhibition of Frank Bowling’s work. Although he has been painting for sixty years this is his first retrospective. Despite much early success I did not discover Bowling till the early eighties therefore his early figurative work was new to me and I have to say that I do not find this work nearly so interesting as his abstract work which really started when he moved to New York in the mid- sixties. One aspect of this early work which did intrigue me was his use of stencils made from photos of his mother’s variety emporium in his home town.

During his first spell in New York (1966 – 1976) he was often admonished for painting so called “ non- black “ subjects. This astonished me because I had been interested in his work for about ten years before I was aware he was black, what made me step back in amazement was that anyone should think that any subjects or certain genres or approaches should be off limits to a black artist, or any artist for that matter.

Traingone (Mahaiacony Abary), 1996

The first picture I remember making a big impression with me was “Serpentine” from 1982, a large canvas, 1.7m high by 2.74 wide. This was the first https://clomidonlinepct.com time I had seen this work in a show and it made an even bigger impact in real life. I love the faded pink on the blue/grey/gold background and the texture of the acrylic gel.

Indeed acrylic gel became the main feature of his work right through to the late 1990’s. Bowling’s use of acrylic gel may have subconsciously influenced my own use of this medium, though I have never been so bold as to cover a whole canvas as he did with the marvellous Traingone (Mahaiacony Abary) of 1996, this is probably my favourite Bowling picture, another large work (as are most of his pictures) almost 1m high by 2.1 long a wonderful combination of greens, browns and oranges all covered over with combed on acrylic gel. This picture can be seen in the Herbert Gallery and Museum in Coventry.

The last work I should mention is the 2018 canvas “Wafting” this is another very large work painted in his usual acrylic paint with collaged strips of African cloth on a background of bold iridescent yellow and pink, to contemplate starting such a large work (almost 2m x 2.5m) at 84 years of age, even with the help of his grandson/studio assistant just shows the strength of this man’s commitment and I consider him this country’s foremost abstract colourist by far.

Patrick Hillard