Stanley Whitney: Afternoon Paintings

The importance of this spontaneous dialogue between the colours also means Whitney moves fluidly between the rectangles, omitting time for over-analysing or judgment. He had noted, “I have to let the colour take me wherever it takes me…The idea is that colour cannot be controlled and that it has total freedom.” As such, when Whitney begins a painting session in the morning, he often finishes work on his large-scale paintings by midday. The act of finishing up any paints leftover in the studio is an instinctual process which allows Whitney to work intensively on these different sized canvases, echoing the rhythms and colours derived from the previous painting session, only now remixed and recalibrated by experience and a new freedom of gesture in smaller format. Apart from their informality and spontaneous nature – involving fewer layers and less overpainting than Whitney’s large compositions – these works reveal Whitney’s dedication to his ‘practice’, which he likens to athletic training or the ‘wood-shedding’ that jazz musicians refer to when describing time spent honing their improvisatory skills behind closed doors.

To coincide, Lisson Gallery will present a dual booth of work by Stanley Whitney and Joyce Pensato at Frieze London (3 – 6 October). Colourful new large-scale abstractions will be presented alongside a survey of Pensato works. The artists, who were friends and peers in the New York contemporary painting scene, planned the presentation prior to Pensato's passing in June.