SHIFT

Andy Harper

4 July - 2 August 2003

Andy Harper's work is characterised by repetition and systematic processes, but stops short of excluding individual touch. In a previous series of paintings, Harper used a counter-intuitive technique of brushstrokes to create what appeared to be representational images of grass.

Harper's recent works are purely abstract. Although they are based on rational and pragmatic principles, the paintings are sensual and engaging. Each painting is a permutation of a compellingly simple idea.

Faced with the self-imposed task of producing a colourful painting, Harper takes the primaries and devises a system of continuously nudging each colour through a protentially infinite number of possibilities.

No two mixes can be identical, each shade bearing the trace of those before it. Key decisions about how each painting will be produced are made before the first colour is applied; but the execution itself is virtuosic rather than perfunctory, visceral rather than mechanical.

Andy Harper lives and works in London. This was Harper's first show following a years fellowship (2001/02) in Switzerland. Since graduating from the R.C.A in 1995, Harper has exhibitied widely in the U.K, Germany, Canada and Switzerland.