Keith Tyson. PANTA RHEI

Pace London is pleased to present Panta Rhei, an exhibition of new work by Turner Prize recipient Keith Tyson at 6 Burlington Gardens. The exhibition features sixteen paintings inspired by poetry, music, and personal references, executed by the artist over the last three years.

Panta Rhei, which translates as “everything flows” in Ancient Greek, embodies the idea of a world in perpetual motion, a fundamental concept for Tyson.

Drawing parallels between previous bodies of work, Tyson explains: “In the past, I’ve always tried to represent what I call the ’Field’, which for me, is the myriad of networks – whether physical, conceptual or emotional – that make the present moment. All these systems combined form our interdependent world. I attempted to reflect these associations through sculptures, in the immersive installation Large Field Array or on a smaller scale, through the fluid dynamics of the Nature Paintings. This time, I wanted to gather the ideas and techniques I’d learnt in previous pieces and work exclusively with paint to compose visual poems.”

One of the techniques that Tyson uses is to paint over an existing work or on a blank canvas, and then scrape paint over the surface. This scraped layer is then used as the ground for a second image. The objective is to generate interferences and give rise to what Tyson refers to as “complex surfaces” formed of two or more different images sharing a connection.

Highlights include Panta Rhei, a small ten-by-six-inch piece that lends its name to the exhibition, that was originally derived from a painting of a sailing boat found in a second-hand shop. Reworked by Tyson, the new painting features a modern harbour scene and consequently combines imagery and techniques from two moments that occurred a century apart. The breeze in the trees, meanwhile, was executed in the English countryside and features interpretations of the same oak tree layered on top of one another, conveying the passage of the seasons and the changing mood of the artist over time. This work also represents the first time that Tyson has painted outside of his Sussex studio.

A catalogue for the exhibition is forthcoming and features an introduction by Beatrix Ruf, the Director and Curator of the Kunsthalle Zürich.

PANTA RHEI
Keith Tyson: Recent Paintings
Ort: 6 Burlington Gardens, London, W1S 3ET