‘For me drawing is a kind of dreaming. It’s a kind of place where forms and shapes and things don’t have to obey the laws of gravity.’

David Batchelor’s work revels in the brilliant hues of artificial colour and illuminated light, often hinting at the urban landscape. He is best known for his vivid three-dimensional structures made from re-purposed domestic and light industrial objects such as light boxes, dollies and detergent bottles which have been augmented to enhance their synthetic colour; a colour that can only have been created by a modern world. Drawing is at the heart of Batchelor's work, allowing him a freedom he cannot exercise in his sculptural work. 'Flatlands Remix' brings together these intricate and vibrant drawings as well as presenting his more recent exploration in to painting.

Since the late 1990s, Batchelor has been creating drawings that are independent of his three-dimensional work. Whilst sometimes appearing sculptural in depiction, the Atomic Drawings (1998-ongoing) are not subservient to sculpture and are never intended to develop into physical works. Instead these works allow Batchelor a distinctive space within his practice to explore ideas, form and colour. It is from these drawings that the Colour Chart series (2011-ongoing) initially developed, representing the first paintings that Batchelor has exhibited within his practice. Within these works, Batchelor uses poured paint to draw abstract shapes onto aluminium supports, allowing the lengthy drying process to wrinkle and form the surfaces into unique textures.

Alongside these two-dimensional works this exhibition presents Dog Days (2008-2011), a group of Batchelor’s colour-based monochromatic sculptures, and a recent digital configuration of his Found Monochrome series (1997-2015). For nearly two decades Batchelor has been photographing Found Monochromes – white rectangular and square panels encountered on walks through cities around the world. There are now over 500 images within this series, with each monochrome presenting a temporary void in our image-saturated urban environments.

‘Flatlands Remix’ is part of the British Council’s International Touring Exhibitions Programme and is selected and developed from David Batchelor’s recent solo exhibition ‘Flatlands’ (2013) which was guest-curated by Andrea Schlieker with The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh and Spike Island, Bristol. All works are loaned courtesy of the artist, Galeria Leme, São Paulo and Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh.

Collection Artist(s)

Glossary

  • Drawing

    The depiction of shapes and forms on a flat surface chiefly by means of lines although colour and shading may also be included. Materials most commonly used are pencil, ink, crayon, charcoal, chalk and pastel, although other materials, including paint, can be used in combination.

  • Landscape

    Landscape is one of the principle genres of Western art. In early paintings the landscape was a backdrop for the composition, but in the late 17th Century the appreciation of nature for its own sake began with the French and Dutch painters (from whom the term derived). Their treatment of the landscape differed: the French tried to evoke the classical landscape of ancient Greece and Rome in a highly stylised and artificial manner; the Dutch tried to paint the surrounding fields, woods and plains in a more realistic way. As a genre, landscape grew increasing popular, and by the 19th Century had moved away from a classical rendition to a more realistic view of the natural world. Two of the greatest British landscape artists of that time were John Constable and JMW Turner, whose works can be seen in the Tate collection (www.tate.org.uk). There can be no doubt that the evolution of landscape painting played a decisive role in the development of Modernism, culminating in the work of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists . Since then its demise has often been predicted and with the rise of abstraction, landscape painting was thought to have degenerated into an amateur pursuit. However, landscape persisted in some form into high abstraction, and has been a recurrent a theme in most of the significant tendencies of the 20th Century. Now manifest in many media, landscape no longer addresses solely the depiction of topography, but encompasses issues of social, environmental and political concern.

  • Painting

    Work of art made with paint on a surface. Often the surface, also called a support, is a tightly stretched piece of canvas, paper or a wooden panel. Painting involves a wide range of techniques and materials, along with the artist's intellectual concerns effecting the content of a work.

  • Sculpture

    A three-dimensional work of art. Such works may be carved, modelled, constructed, or cast. Sculptures can also be described as assemblage, in the round, relief, and made in a huge variety of media. Contemporary practice also includes live elements, as in Gilbert & George 'Living Sculpture' as well as broadcast work, radio or sound sculpture.