For Watteau... “composition is not either order or a rigid system, but a process
unfolding, as it were, before the viewers eyes, somewhat like the development of
melody.”
Lisson Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Peter
Joseph previewing Thursday 1st February.
Born in 1929 Joseph is the only artist to have shown with Lisson Gallery since it
opened in the 1960s. Now, at 77, Peter Joseph re-invents himself with this new
body of work.
Read moreKnown for his two-colour, tonal canvases of precise, carefully considered hues,
Joseph’s work historically exists within self-imposed, specific structures and
parameters - the effect being one of unlimited freedom confined within the
‘safety’ of a framed construct. While these new paintings retain all of the
characteristics expected of a Joseph painting, where once the sense of freedom
was confined within boundaries, there is a now a shift into compositional
improvisation, creating a new sense of freedom that exists outside of the
geometry or ‘architecture’ of his earlier work.
Not only does Peter Joseph not consider himself a minimalist artist, he sites early
Venetian and Florentine painting as influences and subscribes to a methodology
usually associated with that of Renaissance painters. Regarding himself as a
classicist, he intends that his paintings, which should be seen as they were
painted, in natural light, be ‘absorbed’ rather than viewed or analysed. Intrinsically
‘experiential’ they emphasise a time-based sensibility and through the tonality of
his colours evoke a sense of melody and rhythmic harmony.
An intuitive painter, Joseph has few contemporary affinities, among them are
Rothko and Barnet Newman, whom he uniquely credits with evoking an
emotional space within their work. As Joseph himself observed, “A painting must
generate feeling otherwise it is dead...The aspiration is to find that moment
when feeling is not just emotional expression, but is transformed into a value.”
Born in London, Peter Joseph lives and works in Gloucestershire. His work is
held in numerous prestigious collections including Tate Gallery, London, Stedelijk
Museum, Amsterdam, the Walker Art Gallery, Minneapolis and the Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, New York .He has had solo shows at the Hayward
Gallery, London, MoCA, Chicago, and the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford.
Group shows include: Survey 1967: Abstract Paintings", Camden Arts Centre,
London and "Prospect '89. Eine internationale Ausstellung aktueller Kunst",
Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt
