James Hugonin & Ian Stephenson

And our eyes scan Time

8 April 2006 - 25 June 2006
 

BALTIC presents two exhibitions which explore the relationship between the work of James Hugonin and Ian Stephenson. Both are Northumberland artists, who have made significant contributions to British abstract painting. The sustained development of their work over two distinct periods of time in the last forty years is celebrated in these two major exhibitions.

James Hugonin is the curator of the exhibition and has selected works by Ian Stephenson from 1967-72, at a point when his work was hugely influential to a generation of young artists at the beginning of their careers. The two artists first met when Hugonin joined the MA Course at Chelsea School of Art in 1974, of which Stephenson was Course Leader; they remained colleagues and friends for the following twenty-six years.

In the paintings of Hugonin and Stephenson both artists use techniques invloving the application of small regular marks of individual colour. Hugonin works with large rectangles containing thousands of coloured marks, painting in elliptical and oval forms that oscillate and fluctuate in different colours within a very fine linear grid. Reflected light pulsating from adjacent colours creates an indeterminate and unpredictable colour field emanating light. Stephenson’s paintings are formed through layer upon layer of dots creating a stippled surface characteristically made by drops of paint falling onto canvas or paper.

And our eyes scan Time is produced in association with De La Warr Pavilion and curated by James Hugonin. James Hugonin was born in 1950, and has lived and worked in Northumberland throughout most of his professional career as a painter. Ian Stephenson was born in County Durham in 1934 and was educated in Northumberland and Newcastle upon Tyne. He lived and worked in London and at his studio in North Northumberland until his death in 200

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