Re:Colour, Re:Shape. Abstractions on logic and chance

About

Ian Frank was born and educated in Malaysia where he was articled to a firm of architects. In 1958 Frank came to live and work in Coventry for the City Architects during the rebuilding of the city after the war. Over the next 13 years he worked for various architects in England before taking up a teaching position at Bucks New University. There he lectured in Interior Design and became the Head of Course until he retired in 2000.

On retirement, Frank moved to Dumfries and Galloway where he built a home and took up painting. His starting point for his compositions are firmly based on his experience as an architect where proportion and colour where the bedrock of his design approach. Each painting uses the ‘Root Two’ proportion along with the three primary colours, black and white. Geometrical systems have appeared throughout the history of painting. For example, Picasso and Leonardo da Vinci used the Golden Section in many of their works. Raphael used Root Two as a compositional device for his painting ‘Deposition of Christ’.

Frank’s calm, methodical, abstract paintings display a combination of simplicity, balance and depth. They are logical and yet playful, rigorous and yet human. Frank’s paintings take us back to his architectural approach where he attempted to merged form with function to create spaces that were practical as well as human.

John Taylor is a graduate of Edinburgh College of Art (eca) where he focused primarily on mixed media printmaking, supported by glass making. On graduating he expanded his printmaking to creating artist books.

Taylor has always been drawn to the layering of images, textures, patterns and shadows, be they man made or natural. His creative practice allows him to deconstruct initial visual inspiration and then re-imagine the original source to create something vibrant and playful. This exhibition displays a range of textile prints and artist books, based on Taylor’s drawing’s from a variety of sources, which have been re-examined, simplified and dissected to produce the final artwork.

Before qualifying at eca, Taylor worked for many years as a landscape gardener. The physicality of working with his hands combined with the love of nature has directly informed and influenced Taylor’s work, be it printmaking, glass, ceramics or artist books.