Nicola Tyson’s absorbing, psychologically complex paintings are all about the ‘embodied experience’. And nowhere can you see this more clearly than in her new solo show at Sadie Coles in Davies Street. Drawing on artistic forebears as diverse as Maria Lassnig, Francis Bacon and Pablo Picasso, Tyson deftly balances figuration with abstraction to explore the interplay of perception, thought and feeling.
On display are nine new paintings and three groups of graphite drawings. What strikes is Tyson’s bright, clashing colour palette: brilliant reds, vibrant yellows and emerald greens applied in bold segments abound. As do fragmented body parts and ambivalent forms.
Highlights include Self-Portrait Pencil (2021) and Hair piece (2021), featuring an abstract head with a singular recessed eye. In this latest body of work, Tyson continues her investigations into psychology and anatomy, surface and depth, fixity and metamorphosis.
At once recognisable yet peculiar, these compositions intrigue and perplex in equal measure. That’s what Frieze Week is all about, right?
Inaugurating Pace Gallery’s swanky new home in Hanover Square is a bijou exhibition of works on paper created by Mark Rothko in the late 1960s, a pivotal and prolific period in the artist’s career. Following a bout of ill health, Rothko was forced to reduce the size and scale of his works, and the result, as seen here, is simply mesmerising.
At once contained yet expansive, these intimate works pulsate with energy and demand slow, considered looking. They are rendered in an array of jewel-coloured pigments and feature Rothko’s signature rectangular forms. With his masterful manipulations of colour, light and space, Rothko creates visual tension and the illusion of luminous, infinite space. His ultimate ambition, he once said, was ‘the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea, and between the idea and the observer.’
Before leaving, swing by Torkwase Dyson’s Liquid A Place, a collaborative and sculptural installation presented by Pace Live. Needless to say, Pace’s new space is a must-see this Frieze Week.
