![Tony Bevan, Red Interior (PC0111), 2001](https://artlogic-res.cloudinary.com/w_1600,h_1600,c_limit,f_auto,fl_lossy,q_auto/artlogicstorage/benbrown/images/view/b48b39e87f427d66731ae1864636b79aj/benbrownfinearts-tony-bevan-red-interior-pc0111-2001.jpg)
Tony Bevan British, 1951
Red Interior (PC0111), 2001
Acrylic and charcoal on canvas
203.2 x 190.5 cm; (80 x 75 in.)
Copyright The Artist
Further images
Tony Bevan initiated his Interior series in 1987 with a collection of small-scale works known as the Corridor Paintings. He revisited this theme eight years later, producing larger-scale Interior works...
Tony Bevan initiated his Interior series in 1987 with a collection of small-scale works known as the Corridor Paintings. He revisited this theme eight years later, producing larger-scale Interior works characterised by the use of a single, bold colour—such as red, orange, blue, or violet—set against a stark white background. Bevan’s distinctive style is marked by his employment of charcoal and self-produced acrylic paints, creating a palette that is both restrained and intense. His artistic process, meticulous yet vigorous, results in paintings dominated by pigment-rich vertical and diagonal lattice forms, rendered with dramatic perspective. In the creation of Red Interior, Bevan applied pure pigment and charcoal directly onto raw, unstretched canvas laid on the studio floor, a technique that preserves the splinters and dust of the materials, thereby infusing the work with a dynamic tactility that offers insight into his working method. Rather than depicting specific, real spaces, Bevan’s Interior paintings emerge from a synthesis of imagined and historical images of spaces. Red Interior evokes sensations of containment, isolation, and perceptual distortion, reflecting psychological states through its physical, material, and spatial qualities. The Interior series thus represents the act of painting as a means to 'transect realities,' functioning as a gateway from the tangible world of the studio or gallery to the metaphysical realm beyond. The corridor motif acts as a symbol of transition, moving between different states of reality, and metaphorically echoes the mythological tunnel of light described by those who have near-death experiences, suggesting a philosophical shift between perceptual modalities.
Provenance
Albion Gallery, LondonPrivate Collection, London (purchased from above in 2008)