Peter Lynch (b. 1971, UK) is a practising artist based in London. He is currently concerned with two distinctive sets of work: paintings on canvas and watercolours on paper. He has exhibited in San Francisco, New York, London, Basel and Venice.
The paintings on canvas continue the exploration of gesture/non-gesture within the language of painting. Paint is applied with brush or roller creating a monochrome base, the finger mark then corrupting the surface. Each subsequent layer tries to to erase the previous, but the painting history can never be fully eradicated; an echo of the substrate is always subtly evident on the surface. The finished paintings reach an understanding, a balance or unbalance between gesture and non-gesture, between expression and the mechanical, the result of which is a labyrinth of surfaces on the canvas.
The watercolours, which are a new departure, are a single gesture – the brush mark following a repeated rectangular path, the mark bound to the width of the brush. However within the mark a complex surface is created – filled with fluid lines of intricate mapping. A juxtaposition is encountered with the formality of the mark and the seemingly infinite possibility within the painted mark. These watercolours are then enlarged, playing with the scale of the gestural, showing the intrigues within the brush mark.
