For his latest exhibition, Anish Kapoor presents a new series of paintings, an element of his practice that has rarely been seen, exploring the intimate and ritualistic nature of his work. Created over the past year, the show provides a poetic view of the artist’s recent preoccupations. While painting has always been an integral part of Kapoor’s practice, this radical new body of work is both spiritual and ecstatic, showing Kapoor working in more vivid and urgent form than ever. Alongside this exhibition, a solo show dedicated to Kapoor’s paintings will run at Modern Art Oxford from 2 October 2021 – 13 February 2022, and both shows precede Kapoor’s major retrospective at Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia, opening April 2022 to coincide with the Venice Biennale.
Through painting, Kapoor delves into the deep inner world of our mind and body, from the physical exploration of the flesh and blood, to investigating psychological concepts as primal and nameless as origin and obliteration. Since the 1980s, Kapoor has been celebrated largely as a sculptor, yet painting, and its rawest composition, colour and form, have been a fundamental element of his practice. The presentation will feature a selection of new and recent paintings, created between 2019 and 2021, the majority in the artist’s London-based studio during the pandemic. Like the artist’s wider oeuvre, these paintings are rooted in a drive to grasp the unknown, to awaken consciousness and experiment with the phenomenology of space.
Kapoor’s work has been characterized by an intense encounter with colour and matter – manifest either through refined, reflective surfaces such as metal or mirrors, or through the tactile, sensual quality of the blankets of impasto. The magnetism of the colour red is evident in these new paintings, manifesting the elemental force that flows through us all, yet
| Duration | 14 September 2021 - 30 October 2021 |
| Times | Tuesday – Saturday: 11:00am – 6:00pm |
| Cost | free |
| Venue | Lisson Gallery (27 Bell St) |
| Address | 27 Bell Street, London, NW1 5BY |
| Contact | 4402077242739 / contact@lissongallery.com / www.lissongallery.com |