Drawn from the holdings of the British Council Collection in the UK, this exhibition presents key examples from Hodgkin’s print oeuvre alongside the significant oil painting ‘StiIl Life in a Restaurant’ (1973). Hodgkin is renowned as a painter for building layer upon layer of expressive and vivid colour. Although the artist famously dislikes the lack of spontaneity and the hassle of making prints – the logistic it involves, the time it demands... – there is a striking consistency in his painting and printmaking processes. Hodgkin uses both mediums as a natural conduit to express emotions.
The works on display are a chaos of abstract forms – splashes, blobs, dots, shapes and clashes of bright, bold colours which now merge, now separate, seemingly without logic or reason. Haphazard brushstrokes or precisely configured? Images captured in the moment or in a state of flux? Merging or clashing shapes? There seems to be no definite answer, just emotions.
Bengal Art Lounge