John Hoyland: Flames Like Rainbows

Hales presents 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. 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.