Hales is delighted to announce 'Flames Like Rainbows', a solo exhibition of works by John Hoyland. This debut show with Hales focuses on paintings from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s — a key period in Hoyland’s oeuvre, marking a departure from pure abstraction, allowing the outside world to enter his art. Hoyland was one of the most inventive and dynamic abstract painters of the post-war period. Over the span of more than a half-century his art and attitudes constantly evolved. A distinctive artistic personality emerged, concerned with colour, painterly drama, with both excess and control, with grandeur and above...
Hales is delighted to announce 'Flames Like Rainbows', a solo exhibition of works by John Hoyland. This debut show with Hales focuses on paintings from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s — a key period in Hoyland’s oeuvre, marking a departure from pure abstraction, allowing the outside world to enter his art.
Hoyland was one of the most inventive and dynamic abstract painters of the post-war period. Over the span of more than a half-century his art and attitudes constantly evolved. A distinctive artistic personality emerged, concerned with colour, painterly drama, with both excess and control, with grandeur and above all, with the communication of feeling. For Hoyland’s entire career he remained dedicated to painting — when discussing his work ethic, he noted ‘I don’t know if it’s a Northern thing, from being born into poverty. But it’s a driven thing.’ He always pushed forwards, from the early works of the 60s and 70s — blocks of colour masterfully and geometrically arranged to later works that are defined as free flowing, intuitive and spontaneous.
'Flames Like Rainbows' exhibits paintings greatly influenced by his travels — the paintings were made after a pivotal stay in Bali at the end of 1994. Struck by the visual splendour of Bali, Hoyland’s practice dramatically shifts — introducing direct references to the world. Previously, compositions had been made up of a central calligraphic shape, which is replaced by unmistakable forms, such as trees, flags and cascades of water. In 1997 he returned to Bali, ‘recognising things already encountered in his imagination; Bali confirmed realities – of colour, pattern and movement – already known and illuminated by an interior light. For the first time in decades he made figurative drawings. Drawings of ‘doorways, of the wild sprawling wiring on the roof of a house, of a string of neon lights in a restaurant, or the bamboo wind chimes which hangs from trees.’ The radiance and sheer beauty he experienced there made its way into the paintings. ‘I came back with so many ideas, so many archetypal structures that I could try to hang my thoughts and feelings on.’ Alongside drawings and written thoughts in sketchbooks, he took rough Polaroids. These initial studies, combined with memory and his intuitive use of materials, created sensuous, magical works.
