Alison Turnbull

9 Nov 2013-23 Feb 2014

Overview

Alison Turnbull (b. 1956, Bogotá, Colombia; lives London, UK) makes abstract paintings from found materials such as cluster diagrams, architectural plans, and star charts. The process of translating the diagrammatic information into pictorial form is slow and painstaking. She describes how ‘the original image, edited and then re-imagined in colour through the process of painting, gradually detaches itself from its source, is freed from its history and exists in the present tense. I attempt to give equal weight to the cultural and scientific context of the found material, the formal properties of painting and the material activities involved in making the work. It’s a delicate sort of balancing act.’