LONDON.- The start of 2024 is dedicated to the primacy of paint within abstract art. Three sequential exhibitions introduce work not seen before in this country and compare these alongside the work of a younger generation of UK based artist whose mark making has been informed by literature, classicism and poetry.

Leading into the programme, Messums confirm representation of the estate of pre-eminent abstract painter, John Golding and a solo exhibition for his work in Mexico City in May 2024. Works will be on view in London February 2024 ahead of this to consider his impact of his time in Mexico in the context of his European legacy. Golding’s personal journey as a painter progressed through figuration into a combination of lyrical, informal and hard-edged abstraction culminating in large-scale, emotively-charged canvases imbued with colour, energy, and a renewed sense of painterly freedom. Together with this, his global recognition as a writer, art historian, teacher and curator dedicated to the origins and development of abstraction contribute to the profound impact of his legacy. Golding’s extensive analysis and engagement with his subject from his doctoral dissertation at the Courtauld Institute, Cubism, A History and an Analysis, 1907-1914 published in 1959 leading to his credo on abstract art, Paths to the Absolute, published four decades later in 2000 is testament to the rigour of his research. His impact is the touchstone for the exhibitions presented this season which take the narrative of abstraction to the present, considering how it has taken shape and how it continues to evolve.

The first exhibition in the series takes place at Messums London from 10 January until 9 February 2024 and presents a new collection of dynamic canvases by contemporary painter Tom Robinson. This exhibition is Robinson’s third solo show with Messums following successful exhibitions at Messums West (2021) and Messums London (2022). Conveying a richness, depth and vitality, this recent body of paintings reflect Robinson’s confidence of approach and the intensity of his relationship with the medium of paint. His process is rooted in response in which formal elements are manipulated one to another until an image emerges, hovering between stability and the possibility of a further realisation. He has described his work as ‘reaching for something beyond the surface: the meta image’.

“I have been listening to Karin Rehnqvist's choral music. Its often harsh, but it seems to have a quality where it hovers and grips right on the edge of one's nervous system. You feel it as well as hear it. Its beautiful and slightly ugly and strong and weird."

Colour and form respond to each other in complex interactions, coming forth and receding in depth giving the surfaces a three-dimensionality akin to relief sculpture. The paint is noticeably thicker on the surface in these paintings which pulsate with the energy of Robinson’s approach. The rhythmic planes of colour traverse the canvas reflecting the fluid movement of his intuitive yet considered application of paint.

Following Robinson’s exhibition will be the inaugural presentation of paintings by John Golding at Messums London from 14 February until 15 March. The exhibition will present a series of his highly expressive, rhythmic and dynamic canvases from the period of work in the 1980s and early 1990s which engage with ‘folding light’, form, scale and the materiality of paint. His paintings are meditations on human experience relating to the body, landscape, light and the elements. Golding’s approach to art history was very much conditioned by his own practice as a painter, which nurtured an understanding of art derived from intent looking. The exhibition will include key works from his formative time in Mexico as a young adult and will be accompanied by essay on the interrelationship of this early period and his subsequent work by Dawn Adès, professor emeritus History of art at University of Essex and Jenna Lundin Aral, Assistant curator to the Hepworth Estate.