Nicholas Byrne: Fumes

Federica Schiavo Gallery presents the first solo exhibition in Italy by British artist Nicholas Byrne. An artist who, in painting ‘seems to have reprised Modernism’s dismembering of representation within his own work: a process that’s ongoing here as he works out some kind of algebra of bodily presence and absence, rehearsing different formulae.’ (Martin Herbert for Frieze 2010)

The exhibition includes six paintings and  the artist’s largest-scale painting to date. A work akin to religious paintings with folding panels and the formal language of Colour Field painting. In the core of the exhibition is the development of a ten-year experiment in working with copper. Four works where liquid oils cooperate with pictures etched on the surface. Inspired by a scratch, the raw openings will react to the space around them. Over a long time, growing black before turning Liberty green.