Frank Avray Wilson

Big Red
1960
Oil on canvas
60 x 48 ins (152.4 x 121.9 cms)

signed & dated 1960

Having gained a master's degree in Biology from Cambridge University, Wilson was deeply interested in the great outdoors and the elements that make up terra-firma; minerals and crystals. These elements are the basis for the forms and patterns in his paintings, which he has described as emerging unpredictably, autonomously. Combined with his profound philosophical and cosmological ideas and the academic approach with which he focuses in his work, Wilson's scientific background is crucial in understanding his approach to painting.

The main body of Avray Wilson's paintings are sustained by an innate sense of structure; the aforementioned elements frequently bonded together by an armature of black lines, often with a strong shape as in Big Red giving force to the centre or near-centre of the work and the underlying unity of the various elements confirmed by the broad margins of related colour which surround them. By these means, Avray Wilson suggests not disintegration but rather movement towards an uncertain next stage. These themes, in keeping with his ideas of Universe and life stemming from a central powerful core and extending beyond and out of the canvas are exemplified in Big Red.

Exhibited:

Redfern Gallery 1961

(illustrated inside back cover)

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