Keith Coventry shows art of the impossible
This, the second half of the Haunch’s Keith Coventry retrospective, covers his work of the past seven years.
It is one of the best painting shows you will see this year and one that establishes Coventry as one of the foremost British painters of his generation.
The 51-year-old Lancashire-born, London-based artist paints with technical brilliance and unique art historical wit, only occasionally lapsing into lazy gags.
The subject of the painting is often the seemingly impossible challenge contained in its execution.
In the black series, Coventry paints the brightly-coloured Fauvist works by Raoul Dufy in a monochrome black.
The Repressionist series of images of Christ is executed in an Expressionist style but with pastels, rather than that movement’s trademark garish palette.
These are copies of the famous forgeries by Hans van Meegeren, so they are copies of fakes — these conceptual artists just love layers like that.
The "Collection Particulière’" series is particularly smart.
The paintings are based on photographs of the interiors of collectors’ homes, rendered in a silhouette style with only four colours, which recalls Michael Craig-Martin or Patrick Caulfield.
The hues — lime-yellow, mustard, olive-green and light blue — were those in which the Wellbeck Clinic was repainted when it treated shell-shocked soldiers in the First World War, then considered the most soothing colours.
Why is this work so good? Because it links up two extremely contrasting social and political situations with the common theme of a faith in the beneficial effects of art, presented in a style that is at once abstract, photographic and pop.
Until 15 August.
Information: www.haunchofvenison.com
Keith Coventry: Works 2002-2009
Haunch of Venison
