‘Anabatic’ is a meteorological term for an upward movement of air, and it is used to name this dynamic image which Nicholas May has taken from an unfinished painting to use in his print. The central antigravitational form has been made partly through the exertion of gravity on poured paint. The shape is bounded by surface tensions. May has been described as a conceptual painter, in that he examines the nature of painting itself, extending form, material and technique into new areas of development and experiment. His work is clearly rooted in American Abstract Expressionism but he is concerned with both image and substance. His more recent works have involved building the surface of the painting - solidifying the formerly fluid surface and weightless forms.

The work comes from the Londonportfolio, one of the most significant British print publications of the 1990s.

Multiple Choice: Prints by Young British Artists, The British Council 1997

Further reading:
Contemporary British Arts in Print, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and The Paragon Press, 1995 (texts by Jeremy Lewison, Patrick Elliott and Duncan Macmillan)