Simon Lee Gallery is proud to present an exhibition of new paintings by Mel Bochner. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition with the Gallery, and the first presentation of his paintings in London since the critically acclaimed exhibition Mel Bochner: If the Colour Changes at The Whitechapel Gallery in 2012.
The exhibition will consist of a new body of word paintings on velvet. Of his velvet paintings Bochner has written:
“I began making paintings on velvet in 2005. The initial impulse came from a book on incunabula (printing before the invention of movable type). In most cases these books and broadsheets were woodblocks printed on paper, but a few were printed on cloth. That gave me the idea of trying to print directly on various kinds of unprimed textiles—linen, cotton, silk, etc. Unfortunately, without primer, paint was absorbed into their porous surfaces. Velvet, much to my surprise, was the only material that kept the paint up. And while it wasn’t my intention, the kitschy aura of paintings-on-velvet (Elvis!) was an unexpected but not unwelcome bonus."
