Polychrome Painting (G7), 2006
enamel on PDF
91.5 x 60.0 cm
signed, dated and inscribed ‘John Nixon/2006/G7’ and with handwritten details on Sarah Cottier Gallery label (all on the reverse)
Provenance
Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney (JNS52)
Acquired from the above on 2 May 2007
Exhibited
EPW: Polychrome, Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney, 27 April – 19 May 2007, cat.5
In 2006, John Nixon commenced his EPW: Polychrome works, with a large exhibition of Colour-Rhythm striped paintings prepared for Nixon's solo exhibition at the TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville, in 2007. Short for 'Experimental Painting Workshop,' Nixon described his conceptual suite as expanding "the realm of the abstract painting into wider spheres of activity and endeavour." (John Nixon, Artist Statement, March 2009)
For his solo exhibition at Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, in 2012, the series was described as follows: "These works are pictorial scores that can be used to generate musical performances based on the organisational codes underpinning the series. This series of paintings is comprised of monochromatic geometric shapes set against a united background structure. The continuous structure operates like a grid or stave on which the shapes are plotted." (Colour-Music and White Paintings: John Nixon and EPW, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 1-30 June 2012.)
The three paintings presented in this exhibition were all shown in EPW: Polychrome at Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney, with whom he exhibited from 1994 until his death in 2020. They followed earlier presentations of EPW: Orange works in 2000 and 2002, evolving Nixon's palette into the multi-coloured works that characterised the remainder of his career. Reflecting on these early EPW: Polychrome works, the New Zealander art historian and curator Allan Smith noted that these works were a "newly assertive series [that] unequivocally signalled a chromatic shattering of what had gone before, allowing new colour thematics to develop." (Allan Smith, 'John Nixon 1949-2020: In Memoriam', City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi, Wellington, 26 August 2020.)
