Anish Kapoor ^©  

(1954)

Inscription on the reverse: AK0 14 020

Provenance:
Gladstone Gallery, Brussels, as per label on the reverse

-

Anish Kapoor (Mumbai, 1954, lives and works in London) is one of the most significant and influential artists on the international contemporary art scene. Generally known to the general public for his impressive sculptures, Kapoor relies on painting for its most intimate and private side; on the other hand he himself defined himself as "a painter who works as a sculptor" some time ago. His gouaches investigate themes very dear to the artist, such as the interpenetration between full and empty, the idea of infinity, the ambivalence between concave-convex, presence-absence, tangible-intangible.

In his paintings there is nothing simple, his color sabers are violent, explosive, sometimes brutal, characterized by a disruptive gestures. The focus is on color, which becomes matter and takes on an almost sculptural dimension. Crimson red dominates, the color preferred by the artist, who loves red because, he states: "it is the color of violence, has a physical presence and an intrinsic darkness, darker than black". But the color does not remain pure, and becomes dirty with shades of yellow and gray, in a wise and studied color choice.

In the 2014 gouache on paper presented here to dominate is precisely that red color that expresses, in the artist’s language, the exploration of the interior of the body, showing what is usually hidden under the skin, what dwells in our depths. A bright red that is torn by a central black chasm, which becomes habitable space by the imagination of the viewer. Painting for Kapoor is in fact an indispensable tool for conceiving and probing not only spatiality, but also, and above all, for investigating the deepest and most fragile meanders of the human body.

"I have an obsession with red... What’s interesting about red is that it connects to black in an incredibly natural way. Red creates an extraordinary darkness. And of course you could say that red is completely an interior color" (Anish Kapoor interviewed by Maurizio Canesso)