Group Exhibition: Chromatic Retreat

For painters such as Taj Alexander and Kasper Raglus, working in monochrome sits well within their usual practice, however for artists such as Sarah Kelk, Morgana Celeste and Christopher Jewitt, Chromatic Retreat sends them into uncharted waters.

In Kasper Raglus’ minimalist work Clear Day, two horizontal black letterbox ‘slots’ are painted on a pale cream ground, and scored vertically with his signature radiating line work. The reductive composition recollects Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square (1915) – a fitting nod to the historic roots of monochrome painting.

As a choice for photographers, black and white has persisted throughout history for its power to convey emotion, character, mood, and emphasise contrast and texture. In Chromatic Retreat Silvi Glattauer’s sepia-toned photographs depict archetypal cactus plants standing sentinel in windswept landscapes. The hand-printing photogravure process transforms the original photograph into an individual Intaglio etching, tangibly amplifying the inherent qualities of black and white photography and creating a work rich with embossed texture and a palpable melancholy.

The black and white palette is moody, evocative and nostalgic. It is fundamentally abstract. It suggests rather than describes. And it has a long history in art – for reasons that range from the conceptual, to the technical to the spiritual, artists have long experimented with the power of removing colour.

Chromatic Retreat is a homage to this tradition.