Untitled (No.1)

Description

This work by the English artist Alan Charlton consists of three canvases of the same size which hang next to each on the wall with a space of 4.5 cm between them. They are painted the same shade of even grey.

The distance between the paintings was not an arbitrary choice. The unit of 4.5 cm can be found in various forms in Charlton’s paintings, both in the thickness of the frame, and in the height and weight of the canvases, which are often a multiple of 4.5. This unit can be seen as a module which served as the basis for his paintings. The module ensures that no one part of the work is emphasized more than any other part. The artist experimented with different shades of grey, from almost black to almost white, but within a single work, he always used one shade of grey. Charlton applied the acrylic paint evenly to the canvas; the brushstrokes played a subordinate role.

He was concerned with pure painting and examined light and shade, colour and the size and form of a painting. In addition he also looked at the balance and articulation of space – in other words, the space surrounding the work is also important. Charlton’s work is classified as Fundamental painting, a movement which developed from Minimal art, but was mainly the name for an international trend in painting in the 1960s and 70s. The term was based on the title of the eponymous themed exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1975. This exhibition included work by Robert Ryman, Robert Mangold and Gerhard Richter, amongst others. The work of these artists is very different, but like Charlton, they were concerned with pure painting, i.e., they dedicated themselves to the act of painting.

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