ArtWorks Project Space

Barbican Arts Group Trust is delighted to exhibit the latest exhibition of new work by Julie Caves at the ArtWorks Project Space, Blackhorse Lane, E17.

Julie Caves uses the compositional potential of colour to evoke a moment of understanding. She uses painting to investigate colour, because you can investigate the world with art as well as with science. The resulting paintings use colour to communicate directly, to delight and intrigue.
The paintings fall into two groups: the thick paintings and the spontaneous paintings. The thick paintings are made of layers and layers of paint, built up like the surface of the earth or like skin. The canvases have a history underneath, if you were to excavate into the surface like a geologist you would unearth the traces of alternate paths, earlier images and different stories. Some have been in the stages of completion for years. The passage of time is encapsulated in all that paint.  She often builds up transparent layers of colour that create a substantial structure to refract light and nearly bury the traces of decision-making. These have an element of mystery, of nearly hidden things; you must take a moment and really look. 
The spontaneous paintings are more lively and immediate and have colour relationships and mark making as the primary concerns. These are painterly paintings that feel bigger than the canvas. There is both a spatial complexity and a fluidity.  The colours seem to come alive; the relationship between two colours next to each other is like a new colour itself, a third colour.