Gordon Payne

Gordon Payne makes paintings the way the Austrian author Thomas Bernhard made books - slowly, painfully, cyclically, and with a kind of Northern European pessimism. He has made sixteen paintings in the last five years, eight of which are in this exhibition. These works required an average of four years to finish, with the actual production being concentrated in the summer months Payne spends on Hornby Island. Quantitatively, they each contain several hundred thousand paint marks, or acts of figuration, only a small fraction of which are revealed in photographic reproduction. 

-Bill Jeffries excerpt from  “Gordon Payne’s Painting: 1986 – 1990,” 1990 


Essay: “Gordon Payne’s Painting: 1986 – 1990,” Bill Jeffries

An abstract painting made using dozens of layers of blue, black, white, yellow, and red paint, swirled and splattered around the canvas.

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3 paintings in a gallery. The paintings are all big but vary slightly in shape. They show different forms created through layers of paint and materials, primarily using red, black, white, and blue.

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3 vertical paintings on 3 different walls. The paintings are abstract and use dozens of layers of blue, black, white, and red paint, swirled and splattered with other materials, to fill the canvas.

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3 paintings on large canvases of different proportions, in a gallery. They have a splattered and swirled paint with different materials. The painting in the centre has an inverted triangle form in it.

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3 paintings on a white wall. 2 paintings are vertical and 1 is horizontal. The painting in the foreground has an inverted triangle shape, with white drips coming out from the shape.

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2 paintings on a wall. The one in the foreground has red edges and a black centre. The surface is made by splattering and swirling paint. Small, triangular strips of material can be seen throughout. 

Gordon Payne

Exhibitions