HOMAGE TO THE CIRCLE

New exhibition by David Whitaker

10th - 31st October

Private views took place on:
Tuesday October 10th, 6.30 - 8.30
Thursday October 19th, 6.30 - 8.30
Sunday October 22nd, 12.00 - 3.00pm.

"I like counting things. For example, if since 1965 David Whitaker has done 1000 paintings, and each painting has an average of 250 stripes (or waves, or chevrons), he has created 250,000 of them. And with at least 10 colour gradations per stripe - a wild underestimation for the big canvases - he has sent them through 2,500,000 changes. These figures alone are a character study.

He generates so many ideas, but keeps so few records. The little notebook in his studio shows a minimal diagram for each canvas; just some colour notes, from here to there - and back again. Without further writing, he plots the angles, the start points, the range of colour progressions. And once they are in motion, they have to follow through.

And where do they lead? They create mazes where, Escher-like the colour bands are illuminated first from above, then gradually from below, as they progress through the spectrum. But once colour wheels are set in motion, they are difficult to halt. The mathematical and colour patterns he sets up resolve themselves far beyond the edges of the canvas. Or do they ever resolve? Perhaps the paintings are windows to an out er world where dimensions themselves are infinite, where they might all meet developments of themselves, flow together and create a psychedelic continuum."

Extracted from an essay by Katharine Sathe written for the catalogue of David Whitaker's exhibition at Rebecca Hossack Gallery in 2004