About
Cole Contemporary is pleased to present 'Top Rope Sunset Flip', an exhibition of new works by Thomas Livesey. Livesey's practice employs minimal sculptural objects, using the fundamental properties of colour and form to locate them within a history of painting whilst creating a tension in the works as they resist easy classification.
The surfaces of the works are finely sprayed with even layers of acrylic enamel paint until Livesey achieves the required colour fade, leading to a varied density in the appearance of the surface, in some places vibrant and dense, in others much lighter. The balance of colour and light within the various surfaces is significant within the overall composition and success of the work; it enables the work to exist on a larger scale without becoming grandiose and totemic as previously dense sections of jelutong wood are transformed into delicate and unassuming pieces. They resist bombast and instead seek out an intimate sublime, creating a place for the viewer within the work. The use of colour fades also leads to a sense of a void, of edges and boundaries. This is evidenced through the very shape and poise of the works and the manner in which they locate themselves in the space, as the viewer is drawn across and around the breadth and width of each work by colour and form.
The titles of the works also play an important role in opening up each piece to the viewer with a subtle humour existing in the language used. In doing so the works encourage the viewer to consider their relationship to each piece and subsequently lead to a heightened awareness of the self as the viewer adjusts to Livesey's combination of form and language.
Thomas Livesey b. 1983, lives and works in Derbyshire, and studied at the Royal Academy of Art (2008). Recent exhibitions include The Drifting Canvas, Cole Contemporary (2010), Tag, Brown, London (2010), Five Brothers in Seven Sisters, Backlit Studios, Nottingham(2009), Apartementul Imperial, Peles Empire (Schnittraum), Liste, Basel (2008), Pinky and the Brain, Peles Empire (MAK Centre), Los Angeles (2007) - Cheryl Donegan, Rannva Kunoy, and Thomas Livesey, Brown, London (2007)
