Alison Turnbull, Family Resemblance

About

Matt’s Gallery is pleased to present Family Resemblance, Alison Turnbull’s fifth exhibition with the gallery.

Expanding on the distinctive geometric abstract paintings she is known for, Turnbull has been exploring a new way of working. Resisting waste in the studio, Turnbull has for years saved canvas and linen offcuts. Towards the end of last year, she gathered what she had—prepared and unprimed pieces alike—and ordered simple wooden stretchers for each. The result was a set of 27 small, irregularly sized rectangular canvases, which she began to work on, making small paintings with each new work responding to the previous one.

Some paintings sprung from details in other artworks—a patterned floor in a Duccio painting, or a loudspeaker design in a drawing by Klutsis. Others derived from everyday objects such as tiles on the London Underground or a Mexican sewing kit. Several works are subtle colour fields, mixing tones of linen and cotton duck in oil paint. Beneath their ludic impulse lies Turnbull’s enduring engagement with the formal concerns of painting: light, colour, corner, edge, and the essential vulnerability of the painted image.

From this initial process, further ideas have emerged. Turnbull has begun making small elliptical canvases and is experimenting with ways of taking the paintings off the wall. The final form will come together when Turnbull installs the full set of works at Matt’s Gallery.

This new body of work relates tangentially to Empire of Light, a serial game of 333 postcards the artist posted daily on Instagram from March 2024, which will be presented on an iPad Mini attached to the gallery wall.

Motifs echo and recur, ideas leapfrog one another, following an intuitive, nonlinear logic.

Family Resemblance will take place in the gallery space, alongside David Osbaldeston's Tales from the Expanded Moment, in the Matt’s Gallery Archive. Both exhibitions will be open on the same dates and times, with their private views held together.