André Stitt: Dark Matter

About

gallery/ten presents Dark Matter, a much anticipated solo exhibition of 15 new abstract paintings by Belfast-born painter André Stitt. Although Stitt's reputation was founded on his international career as a performance artist, he in fact trained as a painter in his home town of Belfast from 1976-1980. In 2008 he was awarded a major Creative Wales Award to develop his painting practice and has since radically changed his output to painting. His recent works are the result of his re-focusing on the materials, processes and performance of painting. This latest body of work centres around a repeated circular motif, the form of which suggests atoms, molecules and galaxies, hinting at that indefinable, encompassing dark matter of the universe. Stitt puts forward the notion of energy and matter as ‘a metaphor for something elusive, something that's having an impact on us but we can't see it. It's an understanding that we are something else.' The work features prominent use of thick paint, layered and punctured with clusters of controlled circular sweeps revealing fluid colour behind the surface. Traces of Stitt's past as an internationally renowned performance artist is plain to see - the repetitive flick of the wrist, twist of the arm, the physical act of painting clear in the heavily impasto surface. Stitt comments that the ritual of preparing canvas and paint, the movement of his body in looking, pacing, mark-making and evaluating, resembles a choreographed action - the action of painting. Prices range from £1500 - £4500. The Arts Council of Wales' interest-free payment scheme, Collectorplan, is available on all works. For further information on the gallery and its artists see www.gallery-ten.co.uk.