Raymond Carter
Lozenge
31.01.18 – 17.02.18

Raymond Carter’s new body of tape paintings considers the geometric shape of the lozenge, its symbolism, and meaning.

From the first decade of the 20th Century, the lozenge shape has held a position within geometric abstract painting. Introduced to easel painting by the Russian Constructivists they incorporated it, alongside other elements, into their geometric arrangements. It was with the Minimalist painters of the late 1950/60’s that the rhombus leitmotif became central to the inquiry. Painters Frank Stella and Ellsworth Kelly, among others, found delight in the dynamics of the shape and applied it with great effect to determine the shape and compositions of their works.

It is with this group of painters that Carter chooses to align his practice. The works in Lozenge identify with the Minimalists’ bold deployment of shape, line, color, and composition. Likewise, slight adjustments to the pictorial arrangements from one work to the next reflect the Minimalists’ appetite for repetition. Carter’s work, however, diverges from the twenty-century Minimalists and this distinction is apparent in the works’ materiality. In recent years, Carter has been applying coloured cloth tape to MDF panel, a methodology that comes with a certain amount of flexibility as well as the obvious constraints. Carter claims, somewhat pragmatically, to have first employed the medium “because it was there, cheap, fast, and handy”, but the works in Lozenge demonstrate Carter’s acute understanding of the material’s limits as well as its strength. Moreover, by cultivating a Minimalist vocabulary Carter achieves much more than one expects from these quotidian materials.

Aaron Martin, 2018