Publisher: Whitford Fine Art
Dimensions: 28.5 x 21.5 cm
This catalogue was made in conjunction with an exhibition of previousely unseen 1960s works.
Born in Mauritius, Frank Avray Wilson was a leading force of British Abstraction. In the mid 1950’s, having taken good note of the American contribution and following years of travelling the world doing interdisciplinary research, Avray Wilson developed his own vocabulary and became a pioneer of the European version of Abstract Expressionism. What Avray Wilson has done, wrote a critic in 1957, ‘is to reaffirm the reality of the geometric form. He has demonstrated that the liberated techniques of post-war are compatible with rigid form and compact structure.’
A biologist by formation, Avray Wilson first experienced the fundamental vitality of a painted image whilst studying at Cambridge, when drawing cells seen from microscope and started to adopt concepts in physics to view reality. As such he concluded that human aesthetic sensitivities are nature-related.
Avray Wilson’s paintings can prove holistic as they aim to inspire the viewer to contemplation and meditation in order to position the human existence in Nature, Universe and Cosmos. However, for those who do not wish to choose the doctrine Avray Wilson is proposing, the paintings offer the experience of aesthetically wonderful and accomplished explosions of colour and form vigorously displayed and art historically firmly categorised as the European form of American Action Painting known as ‘Tachism’.
