Opera Rose

Opera Rose is the name of an electric pink coloured paint and the collective eponymous title of these new works at A Brooks Art.  This new work installed in this former Victorian florist and fruiterer now a gallery in Hoxton street London is a site-specific response to this regenerated space.

Vibrant colours are seemingly de-valued as non-serious, frivolous:  Artists tend to approach bright colours with caution; the monochrome is a method for conveying gravitas.  These works of colour for Opera Rose are kindled from my love of the “strongly exaggerated” and the “off”, of things-being-what-they-are-not”. 

These paintings are unexpected.  They are created with a sincere and deliberate misuse of paint.  They question the paint’s function, yet the process is generated from the potential of the medium.  They represent a metamorphosis – from a two-dimensional backdrop to grand gestures in the three dimensional.  They are abstract and complex investigation into colour, light and form within a space but are intended at the same time to be celebratory.

On presenting this colour to other artists, there seemed to be a streak of prejudice against it, of its “bright” appearance, of its “loudness”; practical advice was dispensed to me on how to tame it – “put it with a soft brown or grey to balance it out” – dull colours can control its vibrancy – I didn’t want to do that.

Jonathan Gabb 2013