Phillip Allen
The Approach W1, London, UK
Phillip Allen, Lovejoyvian (Extended Version) (2008)
Lovers of visual clarity, purity and transparency beware of Phillip Allen. With their crowded surfaces and jumbled syntax, the paintings in Allen’s third show at The Approach revisit the blurred line between representation and abstraction that fascinated Kandinsky and Delaunay. Quotations from this period of early Modernism abound in the vibrant colours and optical refractions of the densely worked paintings. Even the architectonic imagery of works such as Rich History of Fouls Ups (2008) recalls the Art Deco motifs of the 1920s and ‘30s.
Despite such studied references, Allen’s work is neither staid nor dated: his interest lies in the creative process and in methods of representation – in particular, in the abilities and shortcomings of visual and written languages. Many paintings in the exhibition, ‘Sloppy cuts no ice’, readily evoke the chaotic stage set by today’s numerous systems of representation. The illusionistic expanse at the centre of Allen’s pictures has the stylized, flattened appearance of graphics on a computer screen; technicolour bursts evoke technological pyrotechnics; this feels, somehow, like a very 21st-century kind of information overload. Not only have the concerns tackled by Modernism not been resolved, they have multiplied.
Sloppy Cuts No Ice (2008)
Allen’s paintings have a basic compositional structure of three horizontal sections. The multicoloured upper and lower bands feature thick impasto and fibrous daubs reminiscent of paintbrushes. In the centre lies a broad expanse upon whose flat surface dance geometric shapes, towering architectural forms and semi-abstract patterns that skip just beyond the grasp of familiarity. Even in this illusionistic field, Allen’s brushwork remains prominent; he makes no attempt to obscure the creative process behind uniform facture. Standing in front of Allen’s paintings, our minds race to make sense of the images and to reconcile them with their disjointed titles. (Allen’s words, just like his images, toe the line between suggestiveness and non-representation.) We stubbornly produce figures and shapes from within the abstraction that seem to suit the titles. White daubs at the bottom of Sloppy Cuts No Ice (2008) become frost-tipped objects, while the collaged patterns at the centre develop into a single lunging figure. It is impossible to know which came first – image or title – or whether they should remain separate.
In WXY and ONM (2008), the relationship between letters and images becomes even more convoluted. Monumental-feeling letters, clambering atop one another within pseudo-landscapes, morph into decorative symbols. Written characters seem to lose their traditional meaning entirely. The lesson - that too rigid a dichotomy exists between letter and image - is a little academic, but their cartoonish exuberance stops short of heavy-handedness.
Rich History of Fouls Ups (2008)
In spite of the reigning disorder, a sense of joy pulses through the exhibition. Intellectual but also whimsical, Allen’s paintings throb with the pleasure of the creative process. The jumble of systems, languages and materials offers endless possibilities for invention, while the thick globules of paint in the upper and lower registers become points of genesis. In Volume Champion (2008), for instance, the band of raw paint running along the bottom shoots forth a bouquet of magenta and black lines. Surging upwards the lines appear triumphant and indefatigable – if also a little pointless. Lovejoyvian (Extended Version) (2008), one of the largest pieces in the show, perhaps best expresses Allen’s creative joy. Perhaps referring to Lovejoy, the roguish antiques dealer from the cult 1980s’ BBC series, the title sets the cheerful tone for the work: improvisational, a little foolish and outdated, yet irresistible.
Allen is hardly alone in embracing the busy abstractions of earlier Modernism: a similar use of exuberant colour and dense composition appears in the work of artists such as Chris Martin and Franz Ackermann, whose interest also lies in mapping the contemporary experience. Nevertheless the freshness and wit of Allen’s work continue to charm and engage the viewer.
Katherine Holmgren
Responses
Added by Gerry Bell,
I’m not persuaded that Allen’s work conspicuously alludes to Kandinsky or Delaunay. I don’t see why it couldn’t as easily be to Klee or Mirō. But the hard-edge shapes and bright colours belong to much current and recent abstraction. I regard this as basically still an attenuation of P&D; the more elaborate or obscure pattern, its reliance or possession of distinctive techniques.
Alternatively, you could see it as the dilation of Minimalism.
It’s difficult to keep such work ‘pure’ or entirely abstract, since more figurative motifs promptly suggest themselves. I was reminded of Thomas Nozkowski and even Prunella Clough in his choice of motifs, contrasting textures and dedication to line, of Tomma Abts in the concession to volume or depth. It’s not territory that has really found a champion amongst critics; at most there is occasional talk of ‘maximising’ or Maximalism. But how far it can be taken, how diverse the array of elements to a picture, I think may already be exhausted by people like Oehlen.
Franz Ackermann strikes me as belonging to a quite different project, much less concerned with gesture and materials.
I agree that the prevailing mood to Allen’s work is one of play and pleasure. My reservation is that it rests upon complacency.
