Cy Gavin

Interesting exhibition at David Zwirner of new work by American artist CT Gavin.

These were large landscapes in bright colours and with textured surfaces. As these were done in lockdown they mainly show the area around the artists home in upstate New York. The press release said that they were also “conduits for larger themes” including race and memory which I must admit I didn’t get from them.

The works initially look quite rough but the more you look the more detail you see such as a modernist house on the skyline of a forest. I loved the square seascape shown here which reminded me of Winslow Homer because I had recently done a talk on that artist’s seascapes which also had layers of meaning which you don’t get from an initial view.

I also learnt from the press release that Gavin is sometimes playing with an optical phenomena called the Purkinje effect in which the eye favours blue tones in low light conditions and I am off to Google that now and find out more.

Closed 23 November 2021

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