We are pleased to present a new series of works by Alan Charlton. In a conceptual manner, Alan Charlton explores the possibilities of painting within a defined framework, forgoing any brushstroke or personal signature since 1970. Variations are created through different shades of gray, shape, and scale. The canvases always remain monochrome and maintain the depth of a classic stretcher frame, 4.5 cm in their basic structure. In each case, a multiple of 4.5 defines the picture size. The measurement determines both the format of the individual canvases and their interval spacing. Recurrent in all of Charlton’s series is the reference between his paintings to the wall surface and the exhibition space.
Whereas Charlton’s earlier works used several varieties of forms, combining canvases in different shades of gray; now, in his latest series of works, the presence and absence of color is even more strictly followed as the theme. The artist combines monochrome gray canvases with natural canvases, each identical in format. Charlton states I want my paintings to be: abstract, direct, urban, basic, modest, pure, simple, silent, honest, absolute.
Charlton’s work can be found in the collections of the Tate Gallery in London, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Museum Kurhaus Kleve, Centre Pompidou, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Musée de Grenoble, Castello di Rivoli in Turin and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
