Current Review(s)
Mutinous cubes and delinquent rectangles. A look at Trevor Coleman’s abstract work from 1960-1977.
Trevor Coleman at SMAC ART GALLERY STELLENBOSCHAt Trevor Coleman’s splendidly-hung review exhibition of his 60s and 70s abstract paintings at SMAC Art Gallery in Stellenbosch, a mere handful of fourteen canvases fill the first, very long, very large exhibition space with the clamour of their insistent presence. The impact of these paintings relies less upon grandeur of scale than their hypnotic power of command, and the teeming rush of sensations they trigger off in our eyeballs and headspace. Coleman’s art has a special charge. During his twenties he spent several years in the London of the swinging sixties. A dose of ‘Lucy in the sky with diamonds’ and exposure to the pulsing psychedelic design that pervaded all the media, underlie the painter’s juddering stripes, mutinous cubes and delinquent rectangles. There is a sense of breakthrough, of opening doors and dissolving boundaries that typifies this venturesome period and its trail-blazing art stars.
26 June 2014 - 23 August 2014
Listings(s)
'Abstract Painting: 1960 - 1980'
Trevor Coleman at SMAC ART GALLERY STELLENBOSCHSMAC Art Gallery will present an exhibition of abstract works by Trevor Coleman (b. 1936, Johannesburg) in Stellenbosch. This review exhibition includes paintings from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Coleman pioneered Hard-Edge, Geo-Abstract and Op Art in South Africa during the late sixties and seventies – a time when he was predominantly engaged in avant-garde aesthetic exploration after returning to South Africa from London, where he studied and lived for six years. Analytical and mathematical concepts dominated his vibrantly coloured, modular – or Systemic – compositions. Many of his paintings were executed on unconventionally shaped canvasses.
The exhibition is scheduled to open early in June and will be on view until August 2014. SMAC is currently working on producing a fully illustrated publication to coincide with the exhibition.
26 June 2014 - 23 August 2014
