Discussion - Colour: A Kind of Bliss

Discussion for the exhibition Colour: A Kind of Bliss curated by Lucy Cox and Freya Purdue. | Artists: Julian Brown, Lucy Cox, Jeff Dellow, David Manley, Andy Parkinson and Freya Purdue.

Date and location: Friday 9 June. The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London. NW1 5LT. | Time: 3-5pm.

"Colour is a kind of bliss, like a closing eyelid ... a tiny fainting spell." - Roland Barthes.

Join curators Lucy Cox, Freya Purdue, Jeff Dellow and David Manley for a discussion on the concept of 'bliss' in colour and contemporary painting.

'Colour: A Kind of Bliss' (exhibition) brings together six British painters working in the field of abstraction/non figuration, concerned with different approaches to the use of intense energy and luminous qualities of colour.

Extracts from Andy Parkinson's exhibition essay:

"Colour as bliss cuts into our everyday "reality". It is inscribed into it, rather than installing itself with cries of affirmation. Yet, neither is it exquisite nor exclusive. Instead, it is simply present if we are. However, it is the presence of something quite extraordinary, as David Batchelor has it, “a falling into a state of grace.”"

"The artists included in the exhibition Colour: A Kind of Bliss, at St Marylebone Crypt, London, approach colour directly, without the distractions of representation, but also without an over indulgent spirituality."

"The trouble with colour theory is that it con’s us into thinking we understand colour. Yet face to face with it, we find that we cannot get wise to it, almost as if it puts us in the wrong and makes us ignorant. But isn’t ignorance also bliss? Borrowing even more famous lines from Thomas Gray: “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘Tis folly to be wise”"

Read Andy Parkinson's essay here: https://patternsthatconnext.wordpress.com

In association with:
Contemporary British Painting. http://www.contemporarybritishpainting.com