Alesandro Ljubicic’s ‘colour studies’ offer the viewer a window into the paint texture and colour layering that he commands in order to achieve his larger resolved botanical paintings. By giving access to his experiments, Ljubicic reveals ideas about his interest in colour and the physical nature of the painted gesture.

 

The colour studies relate to the artist’s larger flower paintings and are made simultaneously to these more heroic works. The large paintings are concerned with the subject of flowers- the personal response to their colour- and the transferal of that felt experience vis-a-vis the painterly gesture. The studies then reveal this process through the tactile quality of each separate painterly slab.

 

When presented along-side the flower works, one thinks of the way that an artist such as Chuck Close might exhibit the cumulative stages of a portrait, together with the resolved or ‘final’ image. The studies reveal the artist’s process; highlighting specific gestures, colours and textures, allowing focused insight into smaller moments. The viewer examines each consideration of the artist, separate to - and as a part of - the whole. 

 

Michael Reid