John Virtue (b. 1947) No. 6, 2011-2013 Acrylic on canvas, 1828.8 x 5486.4 mm
This exhibition features a spectacular new body of work by this renowned British painter. The nine canvases, 25 drawings and 70 sketchbooks, all executed in the last three years, will be displayed in Galleries 2 and 3.
The paintings are vast in scale and have a powerful presence, the black and white paint freely applied to the raw canvas surface with brushes, hands and rags. Virtue works solely in black and white: all his paintings are executed on canvas, using white acrylic paint, black ink and shellac. He abandoned colour – which he considers to be a distraction – for the monochrome palette that reveals the draughtsman as well as the painter.
