Cecilia Brunson Projects is delighted to present a solo exhibition by David Batchelor (b. 1955, Dundee). Over three decades, Batchelor has drawn inspiration from colours and forms he encounters within urban environments. Across sculpture, painting, photography, printmaking and site-specific installations, his work is a celebration of colour and its many manifestations in contemporary life. Newly commissioned works for this exhibition will see his distinctive style translated into new media.
New Skin for the Old Ceremony expands on a process of ‘medium-translation’ that Batchelor first developed for his exhibition with the gallery in 2022, whereby existing artworks made using paint, torn paper and tape, are transformed into new mediums, using specialist techniques such as weaving and sewing. Batchelor has worked closely with craftspeople in Guadalajara, Marrakech and London to translate several of his recent works into tapestries, quilts, kilims, embroidery and beadwork.
These often-slow manual processes are seemingly at odds with an artistic practice that has often favoured the quick and improvised. Many of Batchelor’s artworks derive from encounters and arrangements of ready-made objects and materials that are stabilised and held in place by simple structural elements. The act of slowing down is a counterpoint to this immediate and energetic way of working, and an invitation to take time in looking. Apparent imperfections in the original works – drips of paint, spillages and bleeding colours – are meticulously rendered through the caring acts of weaving, beading and sewing.
In addition to his studio practice, for many years Batchelor has created site-specific interventions in outdoor settings and existing architecture. For this exhibition, Batchelor has been invited to present his practice beyond the gallery walls through a newly commissioned intervention on the gallery’s distinctive skylight, using window vinyl. The colourful geometric designs typically made with tape and paint have been transformed into transparent colours, and function in the manner of a small stained-glass window, to perform a final act of translation in the exhibition; this time into beams of light.
David Batchelor press release
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